A Letter to Anger

I have a lot of anger.

It doesn’t go away just because I wrote a letter to it. I have anger about lost opportunities, trips I didn’t go on, people I miss, and so on. My grief and anger go together. These feelings combined still feel like a gaping hole, but I hear that it becomes a gentle ache of love with nowhere to go. I’m still waiting.

A Letter to Anger:

Anger, you make me realize that I deserve better. Maybe not in the moment, but eventually afterward. You make me sad and anxious and disappointed. Anger, you don’t actually get me riled up into violent rages often, more so I am scared to get you in full force. It means that someone or something has let me down and I don’t think I could take another disappointment.

I could ugly cry but not kick and scream like a normal angry response. Anger, I’ve experienced you too much to be angry anymore. I’m just tired of you now. You’ve taken up too much of my time. I’ve tried to plan around you. Even my best and far away deadlines for personal goals are not planned in advance enough. They always seem to be dashed. I don’t even get angry anymore. Depression and anxiety have replaced you. I don’t think that’s a good or bad thing. Either way, I used to think I couldn’t do anything about my emotions. Now I feel like I have some control, once I began to think of my brain as any other organ it changed things for me. If my arm was broken I’d get it fixed. If I had circumstances that were not helpful to healing, I’d remove myself from the situation. The same with my big stupid brain.

I am thankful to past me for getting help, and trying medical and supplemental support. I let things go easier now that I know I can.

So many things are beyond my control. I can accept them and not exert anger on them. Anger, you manifest as more of an annoyance that I don’t deserve.