Post 22: your joke isn’t funny

The past few weeks have been some tough ones. I started to lose focus on everything that required more thought than “what’s for dinner”, but was struggling to figure out why. I realized I hadn’t really been practicing what I preached so many months ago when I had talked about the best advice I’d gotten: you can’t receive with closed hands.

Well, my hands have been holding on tight to some anger I’ve felt without knowing I was even doing it. I just haven’t let it go because rather than doing so, I’ve tucked it away to deal with later. No need to do it right now, right? What’s the rush? … But when exactly is later?

What I started to process about the lack of urgency is that I’m actually holding on to something deeper. Something that’s gone.

The anger that I’m feeling is all I have left tying me to this person.

The truth of the matter is, I don’t know how to love through the anger. After so long, it doesn’t even feel like anger anymore. But that’s where it gets you. It turns into resentment and slowly comes out as hatred. It’s not a lot at first, maybe just little comments here and there. And to the ones who aren’t paying close attention, it could even come across as a funny joke.

See, jokes are meant to be funny, but when hate is part of the equation, it turns the page to something completely new. It might look the same, but there’s a distinct difference.

Where do you even begin to let go of anger? The anger we hold onto is what truly holds us back. It’s like a shadow. Not always visible, but comes out when it’s just bright enough that you pay it no attention. If you’re not looking down, whose to say it’s even there at all? The funny thing about the shadow is it eventually always finds you. Maybe not when you wanted, but it’s there. Waiting.

I don’t see myself as an angry person. However, I do see myself as someone who likes to hide from my own shadow. I wouldn’t have ever said that before. But maybe I’ve become the person that’s put something so far in the back of my mind that I forgot it was there. I’ve tucked it away neatly in a spot of my mind that I don’t go. I know better, because once I go back there, I don’t know what to do.