There's a scene in the movie Becoming Jane wherein Jane's sister, Cassandra, is grieving the loss of her fiance who's died of yellow fever. She's inconsolable, wanders from chair to bed, from bed to chair. Weeps. Paces. Sits down. Weeps. Stands up. Paces.
Kevin Kling, a story teller, suffered a motorcycle accident in which he lost the use of his "good" arm. He says, "Just because my arm doesn't work, doesn't mean there's no pain. I read an article about this type of injury that sums it up best. It says, '...pain is both ever present and intermittent...' Yup. That's about it."
In When Sophie Gets Angry, a picture book by Molly Bang, (which you can look at here) Sophie gets angry, really, really angry. She runs out the front door, and climbs a tree. In time she is able to be comforted by the wide world around her. Oh to be comfort-able!
Here's the point: I'm angry. The kind of anger that is inconsolable, "both ever present and intermittent". I want the "wide world" to comfort, but it has refused me. I have found myself pacing from one room of the house to the other. I pull weeds, wash dishes, chop things. I pray. But grace escapes me. The tightness in my chest wrenches tighter and tighter. Why am I so angry? I don't know. I don't know! It's this vague, nebulous anger, rising and falling with the predictability of a trigonometric wave, and yet it's arrival surprises me each time-- like a face slap at regular intervals.
I yelled at Gabriel several times today. I swore when I burned my hand while making dinner. I snapped at my art class. It's been rising for days; I've been sarcastic and snarky. After I'd barked at him for the umpteenth time Gabriel said, referring to the church youth activity scheduled for this evening, "Are you sure you're safe to go to Young Women's?" Nope. I'm not.
And so I blog? It's ludicrous, really. It is absurd to write this deeply personal muse with the intent of posting it into semi-publicity. But it's this or inappropriately drastic measures.
Sigh.
