Tag: stuff

I mark time in a funny way. I do dates but, they’re not the stock-standard ones. I can, without giving it a second thought, tell you exactly when particular events in my life happened but, I am famous with my childhood best friend for – always and without fault – forgetting her birthday (Sorry Kirst, I’m getting better, I promise)

I have specific months that are mentally earmarked where I mentally revisit particular events or times  in my life and attempt to take stock of things as they were then, and as they are now. Some people would find this a madness, as many people don’t think it’s good to look back. I do, as I often find a strange sense of healing in looking back.

A few years ago, Sheena told me to “set a date on my anger”. That few years ago was, in fact, five years ago, and all it really was…from an outside perspective…it was a collection of seemingly arbitrary words strung together in a millisecond of a moment. Since then, it seems almost insane how quickly those five years have gone. I did, in fact, set a date on my anger. That date was eight months after this happened. I realise, in hindsight, that even though I had to claw myself into ending the anger, the effects of it sat with me for far longer. They presented themselves in strange ways. Ultimately, though, those effects and actions that I took as a result of them…they were good for me.

At the time, I firmly believed I would never recover from the moment. No, I believed I would recover but that it would be an assimilation of the anger I was experiencing, which would make me harder, less forgiving and far more astute in my seeking out of, well, everything.

I’ll admit, it did do that. It enabled me to pummel through a variety of emotions that led me to a place of feeling strong, whilst standing on my own tippy-toed feet. In a strange way, hiding behind the punches of anger, I found a strong grace. So I stuck it on my arm.

Now that it’s five years later, and my anger is far off in the past, I look back at the girl that stood alone, in her skirt…and I want to tell her to keep believing. She didn’t, for a longer time than  she should have. But, perhaps she needed to do that, to get to who she needed to be at the end. I want to tell her that she will suffer this expansion…but it will be better than okay in the end.

I remember, 5 years ago, sitting down at my computer and charting out the person I wanted to be. I wanted to be less affected, more secure. I wanted to be more like someone I knew, and less like the mess I thought I was. I ended up nothing like the girl I wanted to be, talking from that pit of anger. I ended up softer, better and more like the person whose little voice spoke from within me but who I worked hard to ignore in order to survive at that time. 

Looking back, at all the fortuituous and beautiful events that have taken place since then…I am grateful.

I’m grateful for that strengthening journey, because it may have been sad and made me feel emotionally gaunt, because – somehow – visiting the darkest parts of me, empowered my light. I very much believe that if I had avoided that experience, I would’ve become stuck. I’d have stagnated – the very thing I fear the most.

Instead, these events that I thought would break me, propelled me forward. Instead of stagnating, as I feared. In fact, it forced me forward into a life I did not expect.

On the night I wrote that post in February 2009, I felt ended. But, despite all my protestations and naysaying, it turned out…

I was just beginning.