Machetes, and Other Anger Management Tools

There are some things only a machete can handle.

Shortly after I moved in with my mom, I helped her landscape her front yard. About the same time, I was deliberating whether to link up with a Life After Divorce support group. I did not want to be a part of one of those groups. It wasn't that I doubted their usefulness, or that I was anti-social, or, heaven forbid, judgmental. It's just that....I did not want to believe that this was where I actually was at this stage of my life......getting divorced. If I actually went to one of these groups, then I was actually identifying with this demographic. I would be a LAD - a life after divorce person. I don't know how to be a LAD.

So, I put it off. I ripped my mother's yard apart instead.

I tore out yards of overgrown ground-cover, chopped off root stumps, hacked out a few shrubs, and cleaved away at hardened, clay soil. And I grew very comfortable with a macabre gardening tool - a machete. It felt powerfully good to hack and chop and slice away. With each whack I sweated out a silent, simmering anger, and in some ways, the hard labor relieved a level of tension. But, it seemed the more I dug into the project, the more fury that machete over-turned and exposed. It was like once my anger found an outlet, it wanted to rampage; and this was kind of productive, for a while. I mean, constructive anger is very akin to creative energy. My mom's yard was taking shape - a little dry river bed, a defined path, groomed beds. But while her yard was coming along nicely, I was a mess. It seemed that with the deluge of wrath, a whole other dammed up emotional reservoir just wanted to sob it's way out.

So, I made an appointment with one of my counselors. (I need more than one.)

And in that session, I blubbered, and howled, and vented, and realized - this was just the beginning. I would have to align myself with a community of support that I wouldn't exhaust if I was going to let myself travel to the depths I needed to become healthy. Processing the reality of divorce, all the layers of loss it involves, is taxing. It can wear down a support circle of family and friends - so I'd hold back. What I needed required a certain camaraderie, a kind of mutuality. I thought a divorce support group would be a self-feeding environment. But I was challenged to see it as a way to move forward; a way to not hold back; a way to go - fully, deeply.

So, I went to LAD.

I still don't know how to be a LAD person, but I'm learning. I'm learning that it's OK to feel lost in denial - for a while. That all denial isn't bad; there are parts that are helpful to survival. That anger is OK, justifiable, even righteous and needs to be expressed appropriately. I'm learning that a community of broken people can be a safe place.

And I've put down the machete.