Stages of Grief — Anger

Anyone who has lost someone close to them is aware of the five stages of grief. The stages go in the following order: 1. Denial 2. Anger 3. Bargaining 4. Depression 5. Acceptance. I am in desperate need to get to that fifth stage, but I understand I have to work through them all. But today I realized that I sprinted to the one stage that I know the best, Anger.

Most folks don’t like to be angry and I don’t normally enjoy anger, but I am not afraid to embrace it. Anybody who knows me well has never really seen me get angry. I am usually able to harness that anger and respond calmly to the things that upset me. I have mastered this because my anger scares me. The example I always use is that of a person who blacks out (literally) and wakes up covered in blood. That person has no recollection of what just happened, but it’s done now. The anger has subsided and now they are about to go to jail for a crime they were not even sure they committed. Yeah that is how angry I get. But I don’t let people see that, I don’t let people take me there.

I guess that I have suppressed that anger for so long, that I am long past due for an explosion. So while I am going through my stages of grief and trying to navigate this friendship thing, I have reached anger quickly. I don’t do denial for too long because I am a realist. People do things that affect you and you have no control over their actions, only your reaction. So denial lasted all of three seconds. I don’t like depression, so I hope to skip that altogether. I am not cute when I am depressed, it is pretty damn sad. I know better than to think I can cruise on passed good old depression. Also I am not bargaining, I don’t stay where I am not wanted. So that just leaves me with anger and acceptance. Now that is a grieving process that I can navigate.

So today is an anger day. And I need to keep my shit together until I reach Virginia Beach on Thursday. If I pop off before that, I may need some bail money and a new job. I am a work in progress and I am trying to do this the helathy way. Alcohol is my friend, but that would probably fuel my fire even more. So y’all pray for me and send all the positive vibes over here to the angriest place in Georgia.