Where Anger and Accountability Meet

Accountability. It is a word that holds so much power for me that I’ve thought about tattooing it to my body. It speaks to my desire to be accountable to the world around me, my desire that those I love be accountable to me and my hope that someday we might all be accountable to each other. Imagine what the world would be like then….

At the moment I’m trying to be accountable to my anger. When it comes to emotion I tend to feel intensely and then try to channel it into something productive. It is emotion that pushes me forward. But I’m stuck here. Stuck with anger. I’ve taken the edges of anger and twisted them into art, activism, growth but I haven’t dealt with the root of it. I don’t know how to. I don’t know how to pull out all those sneaky veins that wrap themselves around memory and instinct. It requires a surrendering that I’m not yet capable of.

My therapist asked me today what I’m angry about and I couldn’t answer hir. I told hir that I felt like I had a whole book of things but didn’t know where to start. Then I took a breath, sat in silence for a second and said the first thing that came to mind. Me. I’m angry at myself. Angry for knowing better and doing anyway. Angry for allowing myself to disappear when I love someone. Angry for staying when everything in me said it’s time to go. Angry for doing that over and over again. Angry for living my life like that. Angry for not being accountable to myself and my needs. Angry for not holding myself to something I so value.

I’ve made a life for myself by weaving scraps together. By taking what I can get and making something more from it. But now I find myself in the midst of plenty. I have plenty of love, friends, adventures, resources but I still search for the scraps. I look for the sting of struggle because it is awash in that sting that I have found a sense of worth. It is being sweet, willing and generous despite that sting that has told me who I am. So, still, when I’m presented with but a piece of what I need I accept it gratefully. I ignore the voice that screams ‘this is bulllllllllllshit’ and push forward….to nothingness…..to never enough.

And in the end I’m left with anger. Anger for settling when I’m capable of more and for not being accountable to my own values. It is where anger and accountability meet that I am lost. Because to be angry means to be vulnerable. And vulnerability is only safe in a land of plenty and I still can’t believe I’m here…