Nolite te Bastardes Carborundorum

Sometimes it is hard to stay on the road back

I still deal with a lot of sadness and anger. It is hard to forget … no … it is impossible to forget, not only because it was a lived experience, but there are so many reminders. You have to pull over on your journey back.

Some reminders are innocuous, some more blatant. The news almost every day, anyone named David, friggin’ Ripley’s Believe It or Not, certain phrases, manipulative or type-A men, injustice …

Sometimes, these reminders can sidetrack your progress, but it reminded me that it is human. Your resilience will determine if you stay on the side of the road or get lost in the thicket.

Checking Your Baggage

In Season 4, Episode 8 of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, I was struck by the following exchange during a group meeting of Gilead escapees, now safe in Toronto. It reminded me that healing journeys, a.k.a. learning to live again, are not all sunshine, rainbows, and campfire smores.

Moira: We’ve talked about this. Anger is a valid emotion … it’s necessary, important even, to heal. But we can’t live there.

June: Why not?

Moira: June … (imploring her to stop)

June: Why does healing have to be the only goal? Why can’t we be as furious as we feel? Don’t we have that right?

June was still fresh from the fight and in a murdery frame of mind. And I related to this. The feeling is frightening, too, because it is easy to slip out of the calm that we work so hard to achieve, and so hard to control every emotion.

Suppression and self-control - keeping quiet - were the methods to madness that allowed us to get by. Now, free of those chains, shit is going to bubble up.

The past doesn’t have to define us. Take the high road to freedom and leave the baggage behind.

It is easy to revert to the comfort of my angry world (everyone knows me there). But it is moving backwards. I haven’t yet found the balance, or the ability to achieve long-term shiny-happy.

I have a right to be angry. But I also want to move forward and leave the bag of burning shit where it belongs. I still need to find that balance in the forgiveness department as I work out what that is.

And as June and her predecessor will advise, Nolite te Bastardes Carborundorum. Loosely, Don't let the bastards grind you down.

Takeaway

Do as I say, not as I do. I’m not the expert in controlling my anger, especially related to David Ripley.

Your feelings are always valid. But, it helps to understand those feelings though, and find out what’s driving them. If something is good, we want more of it. If something is making us angry, we want less of it. Don’t hang onto it … do the work to find what that is. Talk to someone about it, and get rid of as much of it as you can.