The Anger Stage [of Grieving]--

Funny how you can believe that you are done with the more "edgy" stages of grief, and have now arrived at the softer, more forgiving aspects of Acceptance -- you coulda sworn you were "past the worst of it", and starting to come out the other side. Into a brighter, lighter place. 

-- But then you suddenly find that you aren't through the worst of it. Because here it is again. 

Here's that anger, standing up strong inside you and wanting to scream to be heard. That anger at "him", your ex-.

["HOW CAN YOU not be calling me? How is that possible? After everything we had together?!?!"]

...And you can judge yourself for feeling angry again; you can beat yourself up  ["Surely it's been long enough now, Tina? How long is this grieving shit gonna last?"]

Or instead, you (I) can allow this disappointment and rage to course through your veins, acknowledge it, write about it. Because you've been paying attention, you've been doing your homework about all these supposedly "yucky" emotions, and you are self-aware enough that you don't want this particular experience to leave you with deep wounds that you bury in the hidden places within your soul, to fester and solidify, to become hardened and thereby affect you at a later date. Noooo, not that again!

So, you face it.

You face this anger. You allow yourself to *feel* this disappointment.

So you take advantage of this opportunity to feel it all. And you write down what you would say, to him, (your ex-), if given the chance. True, he probably *won't* be there on the other end to receive it, yet you still feel liberated by having expressed it. So here goes. Here's my heart's truest expression, tonight:

"Seriously? SERIOUSLY?!?!

You can't see how fucking amazing I am?

You can't *see* how I always get my shit together, even after you dumped me? How I have marched forward with my own life- despite having moved to a new town, without any friends nor any support system already in place - yet I'm still rockin' it?

Now, I have that job, I have those new activities and those new friends. Those things that would have made you look upon me with oh-so-approving eyes.

But according to your unspoken expectations, it's too late. It all came too late. Cuz you're not contacting me.

You can't be open enough and soft enough and vulnerable enough and brave enough, to ask ME how *I* am doing? To see if I'm re-balanced now (while you went away) and 

back to my own center that you *might* wanna consider spending time with me again?

Nope.

You're so wrapped up in your self-protection mechanisms that you can't even for ONE second consider me, consider where *I* might be at. 

{Harumph!}

Sigh...

I feel for you. Honestly, I do.

I feel for you, there in your small cave; I feel for you, stuck there in your self-perpetuated world of detachment and isolation. I feel sad, for what it must be like, to be you. 'Cuz now, even though you might be feeling pretty damn righteous, you are still alone.

And I friggin' ROCK. 

And I am right here, still in *your* town. So nearby that it would take but a mere phone call, to see me again. But you can't do it, can you? You can't reach out?

I am rockin' it, without you. I even have a new look (had my long hair chopped off); I even have a new RING on my finger. A beautiful shiny silver wedding-band-ring which I bought for myself to replace the one you gave me. I love how it gleams in the light. And how it is so 'clean' of any past energies, of any connotations of 'you'.  I bought it for myself, because I got tired of wearing the ring that *you* bought me; it felt like too bittersweet of a memory of Us. Which clearly doesn't suit, anymore. And I need to move forward. So I bought myself a new beautiful ring.

Yet, at the same time, I do miss "Us". 

I miss the early days, when we were smitten with each other - with all the promise and potential of "us". When you were mine... and you let me know that I was yours. And when we agreed, on so many important values and beliefs...

And, as corny as it sounds, I even miss the harder parts that came later, between us.  Because I, for one, was willing to keep working on it. To keep tweaking and adjusting, to keep looking at my behavior and shedding the past so that I could be fully and wholly present with YOU, with "us":  to keep learning from and growing *with*, the Other, (you), until we fit together in "real life" the same beautiful way that we had, when it was just beginning and it was all a fairytale romance.

--Goddamnit, how long is this grieving thing gonna go on?--

[abrupt ending].