You're not sad babygirl, you're angry as hell

Illustration by Andreaa Dumuta

Over the past few years, I’ve morphed into a big sister for younger friends and girlies online. I feel an urge deep inside to be to both guide and warn them on the pitfalls of life. There’s so many of them, especially for women and as we climb out of them dirty, scarred and bloodied there’s now the load of trauma to process from being tricked into falling so deep.

I say all that to say. If you’re a young girl or women who’s sad, sad about the way the world has treated her, the injustice and the emptiness of all that has never happened that you know you deserved. I’m saying to you right now, you’re not sad baby girl. You’re angry as hell.

Something very known and obvious is that when men are sad they reject it and fuel themselves in to anger because culturally its well suited for masculinity but there’s an adverse for women. When we are angry, we deny ourselves rage and fury. Either because we feel too powerless to possess it or we feel the shame of being made to be too masculinized for inhabiting the very real and fully human emotion.

What I know to be true, now being a woman who has a 20/20 hindsight of a self that was self-loathing and pitiful feeling like no matter who I was or who I tried to be I was never good enough. I was to forever be taken for granted, unloved by the world and have a deep nurture within myself that will never be reciprocated. I’ve spent so much of my life mourning this. I’ve watched years of my life fly by as I moped about how much I could not stop being a reject of life. I was incessantly lost and perpetually sad. That is, until I found anger.

Anger banged on my door one winter. It was after the end of a manipulative, disrespectful situationship I still harbor some disgust about entertaining. I was at my wits end. With him and with everyone. I just could not take being stomped on anymore. I’ve stretched my kindness so thin it pulled in to holes. All I ever wanted was a little respect and for some reason it was just way too fcking much to ask anyone.

That was the beginning to my Fck Everyone tour. I deleted ALL of my “friends” off social media, ended so many relationships, retracted my presence from every circle, isolating myself for almost half the year. When people reached out, only a few (which told me a lot) I let btches have it. I could not hold back, all my grievances fell out. People pleasing was a spell put over my head and letting truth spill out of me even brashly so was my only way to break it.

I channeled my anger in ripping a lot of things. Shirts, towel, old jeans. Papers, ratted books, curtains. The sound of a sharp tear felt like a searing release. I screamed a lot. Although I lived in a small apartment in the city, with neighbors not shy to make noise complaints I took full advantage of thick pillows or long walks during storms screaming loud and ferociously where it was too much booming from the sky and water pouring for anyone to care. I wrote in journals, very mean and nasty things about people who’ve hurt me. The things I wished would happened to them. I developed pages and pages of pain and slander then burned them over candles getting lost in the dance of flames.

I kind of developed an attitude. I was very short with people, at times condescending. I tried to keep it contained to only the people who deserved it but it did fall out on to those who didn’t and I apologize for that. I was bubbling up with irritation and indignation for every and anything. I was angry and behaved angry.

It lasted a long season. Months crawled around my seething body and eventually I realized it was time to come out of it. I can be angry but I can’t stay angry. I spent the last in my bank account and booked a trip to LA. It small but cozy Airbnb by the beach. The winter was chilling my bones and my anger was burning too long. I needed a balance. Somewhere in the middle, a place I could cool down to get warm.

It’s still the best trip I’ve ever been on. I didn’t even do a whole lot just mostly sleeping with a palm tree breezing in front of my open window, bike riding, laying on the beach, eating tons of mangonadas. The sun was so electric. Rising out of the deep, East coast cold the sun’s rays felt solar. The days were so sunny the views around me went white and silver. I did cry. I dip rip a few more things still but I can tell I was gently coming down from my rage. By the end, I softened up and I didn’t want to leave. I was tanned and happy. The weather rehabilitated me.

I came back home right at the break of Spring. I was just so fcking happy, there was a illuminated fresh joy in me. I have released so much fury. I allowed myself to be a btch. I cleaned house and gave a big fck off to the parasites of my former life. I wasn’t tossing in my hurt anymore. I was just ready to start new. The release brought radiance and that summer ended up being the best summer of my life.

Now I’m here. A few years later, a different person than the girl back then. I still feel sad when I reflect or am triggered. I still at times feel the sizzle of spite and anger slide through me. I am human. However, I’ve grown. I’m assertive, clear on what I want and direct on what I will not put up with. I am proud to see myself matured.

I think about the liberation anger gave me and how releasing it, in the right ways saved me from the loop of woe and sorry. That’s truly the segue, the tunnel from a helpless insecure girl in to an empowered woman. Accepting anger. You deserve to be angry at what happened love. You deserve to seethe. Allow yourself boil. Release what’s in you so there can be space made for the new reinvention of you. Poor little sad girl, it’s your time to be fcking pissed.