Am I Too Soft for This Angry World?

Anger crushed me from a young age, a child on the receiving end of loud shouts and slamming doors. It struck me in the night, I pulled the covers over my head to hush the screaming. I saw anger remain unchecked, reverberating in my body longer after the explosions.

In homes and living rooms, in headlines and on phones, anger still crushes my sensitive body. As voices rage in front of me, demanding that I respond in kind, I wonder: Will I ever get tougher, less sensitive? Will I ever be able to withstand the blows? And more than that—was I made for this? This world of endless barrages, where every moment is an explosion, every word a shrapnel-laced invitation to rage? I cannot hold it all in the ways others seem to want me to.

Amid this clamor, I try to practice remembering who I am. A poem begins within me, and I write:

I am
not whole

I break apart
easily
seams that tear
open
to heartache
and story
to suffering
and bruise

I weep
when sorrow
weeps in front of me
when pain and tragedy
make their home
in the crevasses
of my heart

and I must name
the injustices
before me
because it reveals
their truthfulness
and weight
that they matter

I am
not whole
I break apart
easily

but I am
held

—

Everyone wants me to be angry it seems,
but anger is what got me here.

Anger is what gave me deep scars.
It’s what landed me on the therapy couch.
It’s what fills my body and makes me immovable.

Anger has been used against me in harmful ways, and I don’t want it to rule where I have not welcomed it.

Is there no measure for anger,
for what enrages us,
for when it comes?

“I am resolving to stay soft,” I whisper quietly to myself.

Constant anger, at things I can’t change, at caricatures of policies and people I am not in relationship with, and at churches and beliefs I cannot confront, hurts my whole, holy body.

And so, I told Anger “no” yesterday, I told her she’d had enough of my time. I hold her she has her place, but that she wasn’t welcome to scream at me in the mornings, while I’m enjoying a walk, or delighting in this life, when she is misplaced and doesn’t belong.

Though anger can be just, just anger is not enough.

I want to be aware and informed, but I can be informed in other ways, at other times, by other people who don’t constantly rage at me with anger.

I know there are many in my life who also feel that tension, too, and continue to be and look for kind voices who will walk with the raging and the calm, those who have been treated unjustly, and those who have unjustly inflicted others.

But I guess all I’m trying to say is that I’m still trying to remain soft toward my neighbor. When rage fills me, it’s harder to stay soft, because what has been labeled as too sensitive, what has been looked upon as weakness, what has kept the tears in the corners of my eyes and the words appearing on this screen is the softness that remains in me.

And while I once thought the answer was to change, to grow thick skin, and move through without a feeling, I’ve now come to greet my softness as an old friend.

She is wise—malleable to the pain of others, she allows the stories to touch her deeply, she wonders at the humanity of another, and she looks for goodness in the darkest places.

This softness I once saw as a weakness has turned out to be a gift—a tenderness for the one who has only known harshness. A gentleness for the one who has only known brutality. A light for the one who has only known darkness. It’s an honoring of my body—of what she can handle, of all the things that have molded her to be, of a longing to not return the harm that was so brazenly inflicted upon me.

I am resolving to stay soft for her—and for you, dear reader—because I hope you get a chance to be met with tenderness. I hope you experience what it’s like to have someone pause with you and not jump to conclusions. I hope you get to be heard, even at the cost of me being heard or the last to speak. I hope you experience the welcome of the Giver’s table—filled with all the things that were once withheld from you.

I learn from the kind Teacher who walked a broken road, carrying the wounds of both the weary and the angry. I learn from his tears that flow freely, fresh from the gravesite, mourning with his dear sisters who have lost a precious life. And I learn from his wisdom—the way he shows me that being broken open is not weakness, but a strength that brings hope to another. And just as his tenderness made room for mine, I hope you know that your softness makes room for another to lay bare all that has been bottled up and discarded.