Contained

On Anger, Wounds, and Walking Toward Happiness

Today on my walk along a leafy trail beside a rushing creek, I felt happy. The happiest I’d been in a long time. The water moved quickly alongside the dirt path, steady and insistent. The sun filtered through the leaves overhead. Two kids sped past me on motorized bikes. The ground was damp beneath my green clogs as I walked.

I sent voice notes expressing my contentment to friends, including one to a friend who’d wanted to catch up weeks ago, but I had just returned from the East Coast and was still comfortably nestled in my cocoon and processing what had transpired over the holiday.

Toward the end of the trail, I called another friend. We hadn’t spoken in a couple of months. He told me about his art, his latest show, and his forthcoming book this fall, and we joked about an article in which one of his students had said that he was wise and happy like a monk.

I told him about my intentionally contained and drama-free Santa Barbara life. The small group of friends. The life that seems to be lived entirely outdoors.

At some point, the question came up: “Are you dating?”

I said I was not, and that it was the best decision I’d made in a long time. Actually, all the decisions I’ve made since last summer, when my last relationship ended, have contributed to my overall happiness and sense of well-being.

But alongside these feelings, on that walk, I remembered where I was a year ago, what I was grappling with, and how far I’ve come.

Photo by Maddox Howe on Unsplash

A year ago, I went through the first big breakup with my ex. I moved out abruptly for two weeks. We had just gotten a puppy a few weeks before. I’d been talking about wanting a dog for a long time, but we weren’t ready to get one together, and I knew that.

Nevertheless, I saw a Shar-Pei mix on the local shelter’s Instagram and fell in love, but when he went to see if she was there, only her sister, who looked far less like a Shar-Pei, was left. But, she was still adorable, and he brought her home, even though a part of me knew, sadly, that she wasn’t the puppy I truly wanted, and I didn’t feel ready to care for her.

The puppy didn’t bring us closer. She was, in some ways, the object meant to save our relationship. Instead, she became another distraction from the fragility of it. We weren’t ready to commit to the care of another life, and as a result, we disrupted her life, too. After our fight, he took her back to the shelter before we could even discuss what to do with her, and I never knew if she found a new home.

During our break-ups, I was surprised by the anger I felt. But I’ve come to understand that anger is often a signal. It covers something more vulnerable underneath. It protects a wound that feels too exposed to show itself.

For me, it was trying to tell me something.

The relationship should have ended there, cleanly. Instead, I moved back in. I stayed for three more months, but underneath the surface of our daily routines, nothing was the same. We kept going until a trip to San Francisco, a place I had lived for nearly a decade, helped me see myself and my relationship more clearly.

The truth is, I wasn’t happy with my life in Santa Fe. It wasn’t just about the relationship, and that’s the one thing I wish I could’ve shared with my ex at the time of my break-up. I see now how important it is be honest with ourselves and to walk, or run, in the direction of our happiness, not just for ourselves but for those around us, because if we aren’t happy, chances are the others around us can sense that and may even feel some of the byproduct of our unhappiness.

Part of why we are here is to overcome our obstacles, to see our wounds clearly, and to find some inner peace. And, in turn, to share that peace and happiness with others.

Interestingly, at the end of last year, the anger-protected wound finally reared its head, but truthfully, it had probably been present in all my relationships. This wound, I realized, specifically has to do with being seen, emotionally met, and connected to my father. For most of my life, while I know that he does love me through his actions and unwavering support, a part of me never truly felt that love. Over the years, I had processed our dynamic intellectually through my writing. I thought I had reconciled it. But not in my body.

When the wound surfaced, it came rushing forth like the creek beside me today. Memories flooded in, not just of distance, but of love. Of being a little girl waiting for my father to come home from work. I once baked cookies when I was maybe five or six years old, and I was so excited to hand one to him at the door. For most of my life I’ve been trying to find a way to tell my father how much I love him, but I didn't know how to say it. Also, in the back of my mind, I began to fear that there might not be many Christmases left.

That wound was a gift. It showed me how much I had loved my father. How much I still do. And how long I had carried the ache of wanting to be closer to him and to others.

When my deepest wound revealed itself, I cried. For weeks, really. It felt like a revelation, albeit a painful one. It was as if I understood that for much of my life I had often been analyzing situations through the wound. When I was processing, I didn’t want to talk much to friends, or anyone really. I socialized just enough. I had to sit with it. I had to let my adult self attend to that younger part of me who had been waiting at the door with a cookie in her hand, waiting for someone to see her and all the love she wanted to offer to my father.

And I could finally see how anger had been protecting her all these years. Without anger, she would have felt too exposed. Too vulnerable. I hadn’t even been ready to see her fully.

Until I was.

So now, there is still some residual tenderness that comes up. But I stay away from situations or people that might trigger the wound and anger as a protector. That is another reason I’m not dating, because it’s simply adequate and rather peaceful and beautiful to be here for myself. To listen more closely to what I need. To give myself space.

On the walk back to my car today, the creek kept moving beside me. The water slipped around rocks without stopping. It didn’t fight what was in its path. It adjusted and continued. The dirt was still cool and damp beneath my feet. The sun began to lower in the sky. At a distance, the horizon turned almost purple.

I was stunned by the beauty surrounding me and the quiet happiness within me.

My friend echoed it when I told him I wasn’t dating: “It doesn’t matter if you’re dating or not. The point is you sound really happy.”

I am.

The anger that once rushed through me feels different now. Not gone, but softened. Like the creek, it moves without flooding its banks. It no longer needs to roar to protect what is tender.

And that feels like peace.