Let Go
Anger turned inward is depression,
anger turned sideways is Hawkeye”
– Dr Sidney Freedman, MASH
Let go of it. Be at peace.
These words have been said to me a lot in life and I bristle every time. Fuck you, I wanna say.
How do you let go, what’s the magic recipe for being at peace?
I ask and ask.
I am a do-er. A doctor, a friend, someone gives me advice and I will try it.
I beg this doctor to tell me what to do. She won’t.
“You are filled with a lifetime of anger,” she tells me “and the only person you let it out on is yourself.”
“SO WHAT DO I DO?”
No answer.
So I have been trying to figure it out on my own. Last night I was angry and I said to myself what do I do this. I chose to express it with sarcasm and humor, with some passive aggressiveness for good measure. It felt good for a moment, I’m not gonna lie. And then I felt like shit. (I’m sure there is some sort of food metaphor I could put in here but I’m gonna skip it.)
So then the regret and self-blame sank in, all in this big feeling I have a lot in life:
I am uncomfortable and I can’t change this and I want to kill myself.
As you can probably guess, it’s the last part that causes some problems, so I sat there frustrated, thinking, how do I let this go, how do I feel at peace.
And what I assume many others have figured out in life, and maybe I even had heard before, hit me differently and helped me.
I realized letting go, making peace, doesn’t mean you get rid of the uncomfortable, it doesn’t mean not being angry or not being in pain. It means being okay with feeling all that awful shit and knowing there is not one fucking thing you can do about it, and like a fucking wound, over time, the negative feelings will lessen, but they will always be part of you, so you better fill yourself with the good shit, the fun, the wonderful people who lift you up cause the scars from the wounds will always be there and, joy and good, that’s the only way for them to feel less a part of you, that and admitting they’re there, and it sucks, and you can’t fucking change that.
And that is what hit me last night, and man, I wish that meant all is good, but anything better is better, and I’m liking the idea of exploring what this all means for me.
Aunt Julie
Better is better, damn right. You are winning this war. I know it.
Deena Nyer Mendlowitz
thanks. xoxo