GTT: Burning Alive (Vices)

Last Friday, I stood around the bar in my mother's kitchen. My sister brought Thai fortune cookies to complete the Thai-style meal she prepared the family for my mother's birthday. My mother and younger sister's fortunes were inspiring; mine and my older sister's cut us to the quick ... because they hit way too close to home.

I struggle with all the seven deadly sins. I can be greedy, vain, gluttonous, jealous, lusty, and most definitely lazy. But anger often has me in a chokehold. My fortune let me know that holding onto hurt and anger doesn't just affect you once, it is an open wound that you carry around with you every day and that infects every relationship you enter.

Despite seeing a therapist and writing through my emotions on this blog, I still struggle with letting it go. Often, my anger wells up and floods my body without me even realizing it's happening. It's like a piece of white hot metal that scorches everything it touches. You won't always hear it, but you'll feel it. The hard stare, the coldness when I walk into the room, the explosion of burning words when I open my mouth.

This is the vice that I try to control and can't. I grew up fighting and learned early to protect myself both physically and emotionally. I learned to punch and kick, to grow nails long enough to slice skin, to turn inanimate objects into weapons. I learned to attack with force and to finish off an opponent. I learned to never get caught in the shadows and to avoid enemies in packs. Those skills don't help me much these days, but I find myself still using my sharpened tongue and ability to perceive which words will burn the hottest and longest.

This is my statement that I'm putting it down. The gasoline, the match, the flame -- they shouldn't be my constant companions. I don't need to feed them and keep them at the ready. I am making this promise to myself: Use your hands, your mind, and your words to nurture and create good. Be vulnerable, accept that you will get hurt, but also that you will survive.