on anger

i am not afraid of anger anymore.
mine.
yours.
my father's.

especially my father's.

i realized this in the car this january after a wonderful visit with my father while he was here over christmas. driving him back to my sister's on the last day, he suddenly began raging at a small and inconsequential request. raging to the point of dark thoughts and darker threats. he considered opening the door and exiting the car currently driving down a busy freeway to never coming back to the united states ever again except to see my brother {who quietly sat in the back seat next to my mother, waiting for the moment to pass} because we were all just here to squash his voice, no one understands him, he is a failure, and the list rambled on.

this outburst was one i was familiar with as a child – as common around in our home as morning edition and oatmeal. but this one was the first i had seen up close in a while and came in the wake of a spectacular visit. a week ago i invited a handful of my closest friends here in seattle to share a meal with my family. and on that night i stood, open and loving and proud of this lovely collection of people, unashamed of the things i knew my father would say and no longer even thinking of the way i feared my family might be. this was the moment the two became one.

i made a brief speech before inviting people to dig in. rare for me, but it wasn't premeditated at all. just spontaneous and raw as i stood as part of a circle of "the family i'm stuck with {my blood} and the family i've chosen {my closest friends}." already tearing up before i even opened my mouth, i paused,  after my small attempt at humor about being stuck with my family. and in that moment of suspended vulnerability in front of so many {there were 13 adults and one precocious 17 month old} i spontaneously threw my arm around my father who was standing next to me and hugged myself into his shoulder, curling my head into him like i would, overcome, as a child. and it was just that short, spontaneous rush of emotion as i laid out so full and bare before so many, that prompted the small physical gesture of the hug.

my father called me the next morning in tears, telling me how much it meant to him. to have one of his daughters hug him like he hasn't been hugged by one of us since we were little children. that small moment of pure feeling we all once knew, suddenly shared between two people who have lived decades with walls slowly accruing between them.

so the violent temper tantrum coming from the passenger seat not a week later took me off guard with force. faced with illogic, i tried to reason with it, tried to argue with it, tried to stop the brute force flying around the small space of my car. my mom coached me from the back to just let it pass and after a minute or so of futile efforts, i listened.

suddenly met with no resistance, it only took a few more minutes for the rage to pass. and as the dust settled around us, straining the air we breathed, i skattered it away with the calm truth that i spoke into the silence: dad, you know, the only thing that has been a problem of this visit is this rage right now. other than that it's been amazing. so if you don't want to come and visit any more, that's fine, but i won't let you use this stupid excuse to say you're not wanted or appreciated. it's not true. it's been a beautiful visit but what you decide to do is your choice.

and what happened next is why i am not afraid of anger:

robbed of his flawed thinking, he could finally admit what was underneath it. because there is always something underneath it: a truth not consciously felt or acknowledged or spoken. some thing swallowed hard and kept in, bursting under the pressure of too much or not enough.

after he admitted what he actually was responding to, together we held that truth between us, the truth of his real fears. and the anger, just a moment ago comprising and threatening our entire universe, suddenly changed. it became a gift – the vehicle in which the truth could no longer be ignored. the way in which it needed to be born out.

and, as you know, truth is all i ever need. all i ever want. it is the unavoidable through line that connects everything. a path so visceral that it resonates everything. its heart is beauty. its soul is love. and i am grateful for everyone who gifts truth into my life, both the give and the take. even at the small price of anger and doing and saying things we don't mean. as long as we're willing to stick through to the other side, it was worth it. our journey was worth it. and the Truth will always be worth it.