A Letter to My Pain

Dear Nikki,

It’s okay to be angry. 

I know you were taught that anger wasn’t lady-like, that feeling mad was a bad thing. But emotions that are stifled will lull you into sleep and kill you while your nightmares consume you.

You can’t successfully hide anything from yourself your entire life. And anger will show itself whether it’s been invited or not. 

Plus, there’s a lot to be mad about it. Yes, you can say it. There. Is. A. Lot. To. Be. Mad. About.

And I give you permission to feel those many things, have them move through you and make their way, so that they don’t get stuck in you and bar your way. 

Yes, there’s a lot to be mad about. 

And I’m not judging you.

I’m not ordering you to clean it up and quiet it down. I’m not telling you what you could’ve done differently this day or that day. How you could’ve sacrificed yourself more to “fix it”. Or how you need to turn the other cheek and forgive.

I’m not telling you that you need to love people more than you can even love yourself. 

“You can’t be a wonder woman if you don’t own your own wonder. And how can you own your own wonder if so much of you is off-limits to yourself?”

Empty pitchers can’t fill another’s glass. And broken backs can’t carry another’s load.

You can’t be a wonder woman if you don’t own your own wonder.

And how can you own your own wonder if so much of you is off limits to yourself?

I know what you have been taught in the name of “femininity”, “good”, “perfection”, “love”, “holiness”.

But these are “lessons” that have made countless women “build lives” in early graves.

Do you know how many women we have lost there?

Frozen inside of themselves because they weren’t allowed the fullness of their humanity. Broken into a zillion pieces that we are taught to sweep away into the corners of our smiles, our pleasantries, our nice things.

But ain’t nothing pleasant about being silenced. Ain’t nothing feminine, good, perfect, loving or holy about walking around, but really laying in an early grave; built by unfelt, forbidden emotions.

So feel your anger. Feel your pain. Process them. Use them.

Because people lied to you. They omitted that anger can be a tool.

Like bitter medicine, it can serve the cure.

Like contractions, it can open new life’s doors.

So feel your anger. Feel your pain.

Use them to dig yourself out of the grave you were given for being a black woman, a good, a loyal, a curious, expansive, complex, and flawed woman.

Feel your anger. Feel your pain.

Stand above ground in your life.

Live.