sunday i heard a name and went into a rage.

I actually had to stop and be present with why even hearing his name rattled me in the way it did. want the story?

he called, asked me to perform in his classroom, which I did — and had to leave work early to make that happen. I was to be paid a stipend for this, and yet after the reading, he ducked my calls and didn’t return emails. That was May of ‘09.

The money wasn’t the issue. Maybe it had to do with me not getting any closure– with no response back, no recognition, I felt ignored. cheated.

but is it he who i’m truly angered at? or am i more angry at me for allowing certain things to go unchecked, and letting certain conversations to go without initiating them?

people are who they are. The only thing I can truly control is my own response to what happens. i believe he carries nothing from that moment, and as I was told, vaguely remembers oweing me some money. Mostly he leaves me to carry the whole weight and responsibility of our exchange. It becomes up to me how I want to translate the energy I’m left with. And for some reason i’ve chosen to hold and be angry– as opposed to choosing to let go and be love.

on my commute to work this morning, i made a list of people & remembered incidents where i held anger and was left frustrated. The list was structured like this:

who is it?
what was their offense?
what was the follow up?
after all this time do you forgive?

writing out of my system was a huge help. allowing the words to physically flow through me and be present again with the moments that upset me, I realize in the entire list, maybe four, five people, all those people represented themselves. Whether consciously or unconsciously, in that moment they were out for themselves. My anger in those situations was that the person wasn’t considerate enough to reach back. Not considerate enough to return what was given to them.

should you give a gift that is neither returned or acknowledged, your gift was never ‘given’ in the first place. your ‘gift’ was currency in exchange for something else.

i’m beginning to understand. its not him so much as what he reminds me of. That in my past there are things i’ve never been able to say. conversations I’ve never been able to have. But those ‘nevers’ are doors within myself I haven’t closed. I birthed my own discomfort by not saying aloud what I was feeling, and what needed to be said.

the farther i go into what i’m feeling emotionally and where it comes from, the more i realize the energy in it is wasted frustration. frustration with self. This to me is a source of cancer.

I went to shambhala sun’s website, a buddhist magazine, to look for essays on forgiveness. I found a very, very short story by a dude who did what i used to do– work hospice care for the sick. He writes: “I’ve found that the ideas and emotions people carry with them through life often determine the quality of their death.”

is holding it, alone, for eternity, worth it?