I ain't proud of all the punches that I've thrown.

Hi friends, I wrote this piece after a difficult experience this week. It is honest, raw, and presented in a more poetic style than usual. It also captures a part of my healing process that feels particularly vulnerable, which is why it felt important to share. It is only a snapshot of a larger journey, an incomplete telling on its own. Though writing can serve as a form of catharsis for me, I have primarily captured pieces of my life in the digital pages of this blog not as public therapy but as public purpose. I write to normalize the hard stuff alongside the good. 

This post does allude to sexual violence, a brand of which I have largely had to navigate alone. I also write in case, God forbid, there is someone else, someday who experiences something similar. I want them to know that, unlike me, they do not have to walk this alone. I want them to understand that their feelings, however inconvenient, deserve to be seen. 

Sometimes I am afraid to express my anger at the church or Christians for fear of it being misinterpreted. I believe in Jesus. I believe in forgiveness, even for the most unspeakable crimes (more on this in a “Forgiveness Part II” post sometime soonish). I believe in the truth of his word as it is. I believe it guides politics and social change and not the other way around. I am not a liberal Christian. I am not a conservative Christian. I am just a Christian who loves people and loves God and whose faith informs all of it. I also believe that humans, including each one of us, are deeply flawed and often misguided. That's not a God issue, that's a human issue. Hope and hurt can coexist. Truth and lies can, and often do, walk together.

I hesitate to ever write about my family for similar reasons, but if you know one thing, know this: I could not have asked for a better family. They love and care for me deeply and well and are counted among my best friends and safest spaces. They have handled this better than anyone possibly could. And, engaging in authentic human relationships is really freakin’ complicated and often hurtful no matter who you are or what you’re dealing with. 

This piece is barely longer than its reflection but it is emotionally charged. Be mindful of that before deciding to read. 

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Some days, I walk through life appearing perfectly calm and engaged, pleasant to those I need to be pleasant to, distant from those I choose to be distant from, but inside I am violently screaming, surrounded by fire, banging on the interior walls of my being begging to be seen. 

Yesterday was one of those days. 

There are many reasons why I don’t show my anger, but one of them is because I worry others won’t be angry with me… or for me. How terribly inconvenient it is to let your truest self tear out of your own body only for others to stare silently or, worse, back away.

I could feel the anger spreading to my fists yesterday, agitation warming my knuckles. So, I walked into my bathroom, closed the door, wet wadded up toilet paper, and threw it hard against the wall round after round after round. It helped a little, but I got self-conscious about the noise, so I stopped.

I am angry at my brother-in-law. I am angry at how he ripped my family apart, ripped me apart. And, I am angry at how he has open-handedly smacked me down at every turn since then under the guise of “moving forward” or “trying to do better.” I hear the pop and suddenly I’m on the floor. 

I am angry at myself for not knowing how to handle this better, for protecting him when he hasn’t done the same for me. I am angry at how I am forced into the position of hurting someone else, even though he has hurt me, and for the guilt I feel because of it.

I am also angry at my family, the ones who love me most and serve me best, for failing to protect me and fight for me in the ways we both wish they could. I love them. And I know they love me. But it’s really, really hard. 

I am angry at the Christian men, in particular, who use Jesus as a stepstool to grasp at their own power. And those men who choose to use that power to oppress, abuse, and lie to and on behalf of women. I am even angrier at their brothers and sisters who let them. I am blisteringly angry at the stereotypes, generalizations, and justifications that support all of this. And, most of all, I am angry at the men (and women) who say nothing, do nothing, and fight for nothing except their own security. I have never seen a man get mad on behalf of women from the pulpit, but I have seen them pull perpetrators behind closed doors to “disciple” them before opening the door to lecture me on submission as the perpetrator returns to his seat.

I could scream right now, but you wouldn’t hear me. Bang my fists against a wall, but you wouldn’t see me. I could tell you my story, start at the beginning, but it wouldn’t make a difference.

Titular Song: Dial Drunk by Noah Kahan

Honorable Mentions: Fall in Line by Christina Aguilera and Demi Lovato and Wolves by Jensen McRae