Anger & Forgiveness
This is a very vulnerable share about how my transformation journey began. My past held me back for so many years and I saw my life through the lens of the past for so very long. That lens held me back. I hope this insight into my anger and eventual forgiveness will spark an idea within you and help you move forward into a new you.
The last time I saw my mom, I was a pill. My arms were crossed in a defensive position, and I barely said hello and kissed her. I can’t remember what else was said, but I snapped at her and turned around to look out the hospital room window. I knew I was being a witch. My little brother climbed into her hospital bed and snuggled up with her to talk about his day. I remember looking at them and being so jealous, but it probably came across as a scowl. My dad looked at me and said, “Let’s go for a walk.”
The reason my arms were crossed was that my jewelry was missing. I always wore rings, and one in particular that my mom gave me at age 13. It was a ‘family heirloom’, a signet ring that had been passed down for generations. At least 3 or 4. Each daughter would receive the ring at age 13 after it was dipped in gold and her initials engraved. I’d left it in my car, inside of a make up bag, during cheerleading practice after school. When I checked for the bag and for my jewelry before going to visit my mom, the ring was nowhere to be found. I searched the car, my bag, my backpack, and that make up case endlessly.
I was defensive upon entering her hospital room because I knew she’d be so mad and disappointed in me for losing that particular ring. I could just imagine her accusations, “you always lose things…you never take care of your things…” and I didn’t want to argue with her. It wasn’t a plan, but I also didn’t want to be yelled at. I’d made it through the entire day without being yelled at. I was too young to understand the perspective of the life and death experience my mom had been through, and that she probably wouldn’t have even lectured me. She was probably just really happy to be alive that day. She’d just had her second surgery to remove a cancerous tumor in her colon. She was on the mend and recovering.
She wasn’t supposed to die that day. Later that night we got a call that she was being moved to Little Rock because one of her lungs had collapsed. They had stabilized it, but her other failed. Without the lungs, it was going to be a tough fight. She passed away as her organs failed, all because those lungs just couldn’t keep up. She’d never stopped smoking after that first bout with colon cancer. She just needed smoking because she felt it calmed her anxiety. It was relieving in the moment. Her life ended suddenly, and unexpectedly.
I’d planned to apologize to her the next day and tell her why I’d been so ugly. Confess my wrong doing. Tell her how much I loved her and how glad I was that she was alive. I never got that opportunity. And how did that make me feel? Angry. So very angry. Guilt and shame also mixed in, but more than anything, I was angry with my mom for dying on me. I was angry she’d never stopped smoking. I was angry she had such high expectations of me. I was angry that I couldn’t/didn’t talk to her that day. I didn’t know I was angry, but that is how I felt. And that emotion grew and grew and grew. It became the constant feeling that I sought to erase on a daily basis. No one knew.
It’s a miracle I survived my teens and twenties from the perspective of how I cared for myself. I suppose I did just enough to keep this clay pot going. I drank so much and ate so poorly that I developed a blood filled tumor that continuously hollowed in my left tibia until my leg broke at age 30. I gained a lot of weight, and I wore it well, but I tipped into the 190’s on a regular basis. I am 5’4″, so that is not ideal. I spent time in relationships that never served me. I allowed others to control my path in life. I was incredibly mean to myself. I felt angry 50% of the time. I lost my confidence. I spent way more time in judgement and hate than in love. I eventually developed two auto-immune disorders and discovered I have a gene variation called MTHFR – all of which is scary. My anger showed up physically by age 30, and scarily by age 37.
Years later I met my then 14 year old step-daughter, and I discovered what angry looks like and acts like. She was abandoned by her mom at age 4, barely to ever see the woman again. Their future exchanges would be subpar, to put it nicely. As I watched this trauma play out in her life in the form of (incorrect) diagnosis after diagnosis, running away from home, and more that I won’t mention, I figured out that she was angry. I knew exactly how that felt. I’d done so many of the same things, just in secret. Our difference was only that I never wanted anyone to know I was angry , because it was disrespectful and wrong to be angry at someone for dying. Her anger was justifiable, but she couldn’t put a name on it either.
How could I possibly help my step daughter? Awareness hit me in the form of forgiveness. I became aware I needed to forgive my mom. I had to so I could help my step daughter figure out how to forgive her mom. I determined forgiveness was the only way to eliminate my anger, and eventually, her anger. My anger had become a personality by age 35, and it had blocked me from so much in life. All of a sudden forgiveness and letting go of anger was all over my radar. It only took 35-ish years, multiple traumas, and the need of another. I was surprised that I also needed to forgive myself for my behavior. Forgiving truly began my healing journey. I believe it began hers as well. I am not sure I did much more than set an example, and I am so honored by the incredible person she’s become.
Let’s be clear, forgiveness is not saying that another that wronged you is in the right. What forgiveness is, is no longer letting that wrong control you. Once forgiven, that person or circumstance can no longer cast shadow on you, your plans, or your dreams. Trudging through life with immense anger weighing you down holds you back in every facet of your being. Again, you don’t have to say what that person has done is ok. You can say it doesn’t control your emotions though. You can break free from a prison you don’t know you are in by letting go of anger and offering forgiveness on your terms.
If you’re stuck and trying to figure out why you are angry, or how to forgive, know that there is a way. Keep seeking to understand and you will. The answers are inside of you, you just have to let them come out.
I discovered many other lessons through forgiveness. Time is short and you never know what the evening or next day will bring. Breathe kind words into your loved ones and friends, even if you don’t feel like it. Be vulnerable and show that you’ve lost the ring, or whatever it is in your world. Creating that imagined outcome in my head at 16 held me back from everything in life for way too long. If you are letting past actions block and hold you back, or if you want to do better in the future, you can. Don’t give up.
