The Adventures Of Angry Woman

Raise your hand if you thought I was going to write about the upholding of Prop 8.

Nope. Sorry to disappoint / happy to relieve – which ever the case may be.

No big surprise to long time followers of this blog, I have, for some time now, been living the Adventures of Angry Woman. I think we would all agree that this is much better than The Sad Little Tale of Victim Girl that used to be my life story, but – Halleluiah – it is time for these particular adventures to come to an end.

I have resisted heading in this direction with y’all because it involves a great deal of my own personal… I can hardly write the word… spirituality. Not that I have a hard time with my spirituality in my private life but publicly, here on this blog, I would be far more comfortable discussing my coochie than the inner workings of my soul. Not that I AM going to discuss my coochie mind you – it's just that, as humans, our spirituality is far more private than absolutely anything else. Even our sexuality. At least mine is.

When I had my religious melt down and wiped the slate clean, as I’ve said a hundred times, literally everything was thrown out and labeled bullshit. After a while I was aware that there were many things that would not accept (in fact, actively rejected) that label but were far off in the wings waiting lovingly, and oh so patiently, for me to be ready to look at them again.

To say that I hated God is a gross understatement. If anyone said the word I nearly started shaking with rage and, quite literally, had to breathe deeply in order to not cry or destroy furniture. Eventually I was willing to make the concession that IF there was a God that actually existed, it was NOT the God that I had beaten myself with like a bat and had “tested” and “tried” me into an emotional grave.

Roughly four years after the Tsunami hit I realized that I missed Spirituality – that I am, by nature, a deeply spiritual person but had no idea where to even put that. Then, one day I was talking with a good friend who said to me, “No, I don’t believe in God. But I am a very spiritual person.” My brain stroked out. One could have a spiritual life that didn’t include GOD??? It made no sense to me. I had never even considered such a thing. But consider it I did. And it made all the difference in the world.

I started dipping my little toes into my own little spiritual pool and it felt wonderful. Then, like becoming accustomed to a hot tub that is a few degrees higher than one is used to I very slowly and carefully lowered myself in. Then I started dog paddling. Then swimming. Then splashing and playing while I did my laps. It was glorious. Until I hit the Anger Wall.

Prop 8 happened. And in my personal life I was thrust into a battle that was vastly important but ugly and exhausting. I found myself in big time war mode and all spiritual life stopped. Things on the battle front calmed significantly but I was still hanging onto the battery acid-like fury in my gut. A few weeks ago I realized that Joy in my life was being held at bay by none other than my very own self and that I needed to let go of all the anger I’d been holding towards two specific individuals and one very specific church.

We know that underneath depression lies unexamined anger. And underneath anger lies unexamined grief and pain. The great illusion of life is that pain is something to be feared and avoided. Oh, it is sooo not. Pain is something to be embraced and breathed through and let go of and made better because of. Pain, anger and fear are three of our greatest teachers. And on the other side of moved through pain-anger-fear is the Land of Happy Happy Joy Joy.

Decades of being me have taught me how to do my, for lack of a better term, “Inner Work” and so I dove in and did it. I let go of, forgave, worked through and was instantly hit by a tidal wave of all things indescribably good. Now I find myself totally immersed back in a spiritual ocean in which I alternate between underwater ballet (Esther Williams style - complete with sparklers and a trapeze) and riding the waves a million miles an hour.

I’m still human and things will, without question, still piss me off. But, I think I'm done being Angry Woman. It ain’t no fun. I much prefer happiness and creativity to the emotional death of being a pitchfork throwing mob of one.

So, there you have it. Emily is spiritually alive. Very much so. Do I believe in God? With all my heart. Does that God remotely resemble the God I thought I knew all my life? Not even close. Am I totally and completely freaking that I am writing all this publicly? You have no idea.

Now, about my coochie…