I chatted with a reader yesterday about anger. She said she was having some problems lashing out at people. She didn’t feel she was necessarily angry with her late husband but she was sure as heck angry with everyone else in the world. She wondered if maybe that meant that deep down she really IS angry at him. Ahhhhh, she’s getting it. In the early weeks after losing Mr. Virgo, I secretly hated everybody. I especially hated happy couples walking hand in hand or, God forbid, kissing. I was on a bus one time and it was everything I could do to keep from screaming “Stop it! You’re killing me!!!” to the couple across from me. I hated them. Angry, white-hot hate that came from some primal spot in the innermost crevasse where my heart used to live, happily intact and beating. I think I did a pretty good job of hiding this anger from others since my MO as the “Keeper of the Non-Rocking Boat” has been pretty much the standard in my life. So it seethed and boiled inside of me, eating away.

I was blessed to be in a job at the time with extremely flexible hours. After Mr. Virgo died, I bought my first little camper and took off for the mountains for 3 months. I drove as far back in the wilderness as I could get. And that’s where I got in touch with my anger. There was nothing but wildlife for miles around so I screamed. I yelled at God for taking my man. I yelled at Mr. Virgo for having the unmitigated gall to up and die on me. I yelled at him for smoking and for not getting the tests done a few months before when the doctor wanted a work up. I yelled at myself for not insisting. I yelled. I screamed. I cried.

For months. I wrestled with angels. When I finally dropped with exhaustion, hands limply folded in my lap, I was spent. I was emotionally empty. I could not begin to rebuild my life until every bit of the rubble from the wreckage was swept away. Well, at least tidied up and organized. I stirred what little was left of my anger into the mortar and rebuilt my foundation. I’m still working on it. We all experience anger when we lose someone important to us. And yes, we get angry at the perp. They left us. They changed our lives forever. Don’t feel guilty for that. It’s ok to live in anger for awhile. Just don’t make it a permanent address.

❤️

“See what they spew from their mouths— the words from their lips are sharp as swords, and they think, “Who can hear us?”” Psalm 59:7 Photo Credit: www.playbuzz.com