The Shaggy, Rabid Wolf

on the anger that doesn't leave

To have the news of C’s cancer diagnosis dropped just when 2023 was starting out meant he and I knew that the rest of 2023 was going to be hard. But how hard? How hard was the question we didn’t have the answer to. All I knew was that there was darkness ahead—something blurry and strange that I couldn’t foresee—something to fear that we’d yet to experience.

A few days away from the end of 2023, I’ve been spending my time working on my book, which has an upcoming deadline, and reflecting on the year that’s passed. I’ve been doing the latter with the help of Susannah Conway’s Unravel Your Year book, which she’s been providing (for free) for so long that I can’t remember how long I’ve been filling its pages. One of the assignments within is to review each month of the last year; with the help of my calendar and journal, I was able to see how the days of 2023 went by: heading into the dark, and breathing deep into the pitch.

C is alive. I spoke to him yesterday on FaceTime, and I laughed and laughed as we joked; I yearned for him and our dog as we spoke, even as I’m happy here in Taiwan with my parents. We made it through this year with the help of so many people and a bone marrow donor and his family and mine, and we are lucky ducks, the two of us: we have bought some time for ourselves. I have more time with the person I love.

But in 2023, I’ve been afraid. I’ve sobbed for hours. I’ve tried hard to pull myself up by the emotional bootstraps. I had the worst recurrence of self-harm that I’ve experienced in years; hid in my office; pushed my body until I was sick. All I have to do is run my fingers along the lumpy scars on my thigh to know that I’m marked—I slip on my clothing. I don’t look in the mirror.

This time that I’m spending in Taiwan has always been the light at the end of the tunnel while I fought my way through 2023, as a person who lives with multiple types of mental and physical illness, trying to be the right kind of support for my husband as we figured out how cancer was going to look for him, for us, for everyone who loves him. And lo: I didn’t do a spectacular job. I failed in many ways, I know.

I’m in Guangdu right now, staring above my laptop at the white, setting sun over the mountains, listening to the Normal People soundtrack. For the most part, my time in Taiwan has felt peaceful. I’ve been happy, and for that, I am profoundly lucky.

What I want to confess is this: in filling out my reflections for the. year, I was also filled with an inexplicable rage. I wanted to scream at all the days that were filled with bleakness and rot. I felt again the hot emotions that surfaced time and again this year in my body, unable to find a safe outlet, and at first, in my anger, I didn’t know what to do. I let the rage fill me for as long as it wanted to stay.

And it stayed. It stays. I think it is still here, lurking at my edges, glaring at me like a shaggy, rabid wolf in the corner. It wants me not to forget it, however glad I am for the fortune we’ve had. C is in remission. He is recovering. He is here to make jokes with me about birds wearing bow ties. I will never be able to express enough gratitude for that.

But rage needs a place, too. It needs a place to live in your home, eating the worms that you feed it in a little dish. It needs a place to know that it’s okay to be angry.

You’re okay. You can let it be there. I know.

I am the founder and creator of The Unexpected Shape Writing Academy, an online writing school for ambitious writers living with limitations. We have an amazing curriculum, from pre-writing to writing to publication, and a library of guest lectures that will cause you to burst into confetti with excitement. Right now, it’s only $97 per month, for as long as you want to be a part. Learn more about the Academy at http://www.unexpectedshapeacademy.com/.