Anger and Compassion. All at Once

Have you ever been so angry you could scream? Like, really scream?

Perhaps at someone in particular?

A close family member, "care"giver/parent...

Saying all kinds of things you know you'd regret, but wanting with everything in your being to just say it? Loud.

Have you ever had that experience and, in the very same instance, wanted to just hug that person and tell them they are okay? That they are doing the very best that they can? And that you are so sorry... sorry for all the pain that they've ever felt. Sorry for all the wrong done to them? Sorry that they lived the life they lived and had the pain they felt.

Because you knew in your heart of hearts that they caused and continue to cause you so much pain, and you knew... deep down... that the way you experienced them was a direct result of this pain?

So real that you knew it was real. And big. Really big.

I have.

And it sucks.

I've felt the urge to swing. But also hug.

And I wasn't convinced that the anger wouldn't serve me well. Serve me in getting it out--even at a great cost. Believing that to swing and connect was better than not connecting. And that bottling up the anger was only really just eating at me. And that didn't seem fair. Or right.

The truth is this is normal. And healthy.

We can feel two things at the same time, especially extreme feelings, feelings that are at the opposite ends of the spectrum.

A deep urge to wound, because we’ve been wounded.

Yet also, a longing to heal. And to hope.

Because we know that's what we really need.

Hope that things are getting better, that things will not stay the way they are

...and that maybe, just maybe, our generation will be the one that does things differently...

And this pain, the pain that they experience and pass to us, ends here

Ends for everyone.