What Do You Do With It?

Tonight I sat for six hours and watched my best friend repeat the stages of grief over and over again until she slept. We walked in circles between anger and sadness, and I let her scream and cry, and even broke down with her three or four times. It was a hard night, but as I drove home at the wee hour of one a.m., I began to think about emotion and how much conversations about anger have been happening in my life during the past few days. It seems to have become a common theme lately, and I'm reaching around to try and understand it.

Anger is a confusing emotion for me. Though I grew up an angry child as a result of having angry parents, I've grown to think that being angry isn't acceptable. I often contradict myself when I speak about my anger, because sometimes I believe it to be ok and yet won't let myself admit to it. I think it might be because I don't understand it, and yet maybe I wasn't meant to. I know that unexpressed anger is dangerous, and I'm slowly learning that it's ok to be mad as long as I channel it properly. But is it? Are we allowed to be angry with our circumstances and with what goes on around us? Is there a constructive way to express anger?

I know that I am mad at my mother for leaving me. But is that fair? It's not like she chose to do it. I know that I get mad when people don't live up to my expectations. But is that fair? I mean, it's definitely ok for people to fail. I do all the time. I know that I am mad about the mistakes my parents made in raising me. But is that fair? They probably did the best they could. I know I get really mad at people who mistreat children. That's got to be fair, right?

I don't really have any answers tonight. I just know that the subject of anger has been weighing heavy on my mind for the past few days, and I want to know if it's alright to be mad. I want to know how to handle so negative an emotion. God made us able to feel, and He gave us our emotions. God gets angry, so does that mean I can? I'm not really sure...

Friday morning, over coffee, in Seattle:

He looked up at me, paused for a moment, and said, "I just have so much anger that I've kept inside of me for so long. I've been such an angry person lately."

"Me too," I said. "I just recently realized how mad I am."

He was silent for a moment.

"But what do you DO with it?" he quietly asked me.

I hesitated for a moment before I looked up and met his eyes.

"I have no idea."