The Dance of Anger

I kicked myself in the ass.

It had been months with no contact & I felt like I was finally getting somewhere. Often, however, when I feel I’ve reached a good point on the board game of “Over You”, something would come knock me back a few spots. I’d pull the wrong card, “Go back 5 spaces”. But, this time, I’d pulled the “Go back to Start”.

I had read the e-mail.

Responded.

I didn’t know it then - not yet - but it wouldn’t take long to figure out the card I’d dealt.

The descent left me reeling in anger. The fuckin’ audacity, I kept thinking, as memories I’d refused to put any judgement on came spewing out of the pit I’d buried them in. I had wanted to punish myself & placing judgement on his action or words didn’t fit my agenda. Maybe, I had subconsciously figured, if I lashed myself…..if I picked up the whip & emotionally flogged myself enough, maybe….he’ll come back.

I was both Zeus & Atlas; casting the judgement & carrying the burden.

This agenda, it existed without my knowing. No. Not quite true. I rejected it. It was only in moments that I’d hear a whisper of hope, yearning, from somewhere in my body. Maybe from my veins, because it felt encapsulating from the inside out, but the next thought would be, “I need to pump gas”, or “What should I make for dinner?” It was never drawn out enough for me to process it as a thought. I didn’t want it to be.

There was no eruption to chaotically subdue. It was gentle. A pressing, burning liquid that seethed at the edges of my soul & began to seep slowly - like molasses - into every part of me that had previously denied access. Maybe I was tired because I didn’t fight it.

The Anger.

Finally.

Over the weeks that followed, I became hungry for it.

I had put him on a pedestal & I was busy, angrily knocking at each peg until it crash landed into a rubble that I then burned to ash.

I had gone back to the beginning, and though the path is never linear, I had an idea of how to move forward.

I knew where a rock jutted out, & where I had once stumbled, I stepped over; sometimes gracefully, sometimes not. Where once I’d been dragged back a bit by the current, I surrendered to the stream of hurt I’d previously fought so hard to avoid. It was true that I’d been healing & confronting, but it wasn’t enough to do one passing-through. Each time I’d pull the “wrong” card & fell backwards, I saw something I had missed. Tearily but determined, I’d brush my knees off - linger in that moment like a lost child, or immediately keep moving. It was never the same, but it was always what I needed.

Still……

Sometimes, an ember burns a little longer than it should.

I was looking for an insurance quote in my inbox when I came across a letter from almost exactly a year before. We had wanted to get married at our favorite brewery, and as I began to read the unfamiliar letter, it dawned on me that I was reading a price quote for the venue so we could get married there.

We went from wanting to get married to being strangers.

My eyes stared blankly at the screen, not knowing how to turn away or even how to blink away the burning tears threatening to escape.

But embers die. I know because I put my feet to the ash, danced on the rubble of the castle crumbled. I let the smoke sashay over me like a silky dress draping me gently, strap falling softly on my shoulder like a kiss. Anger can be so beautiful.

This isn’t to say that the journey ahead won’t have troubles, or that I’ll never pull a card that lands me on my back again, but it is to say that an important part of it - the part that dethroned a king & queen then burned the castle down - that part doesn’t haunt me anymore. It’s lovely ash blowing in the wind now. I may find another ember along the way, but now I know how to dance; how to put my feet to fire & let it burn beneath my heel until it doesn’t anymore.

I didn’t have a fitting image to share so here’s Cat & I whose ember will always glow. Love & miss you, Keety. Always.