Mourning Dove

My last fingernail has been ripped off. 

I no longer have any fingernails. I’ve somehow found myself stuck in a pit, and like any sane person, I’ve tried my absolute hardest to get myself out. The hours I have spent trying to climb the walls and pry myself out of this pit have been agonising, and every time I feel as if I’ve gotten a grip, I’ve lost a nail.  

Sometimes people pass by me and peer into the hole I’m trapped in. Sometimes they laugh as if it’s a game. I picture a game show host or a zookeeper presenting me like entertainment. 

“Step right up and watch the woman try and crawl out! Will she make it out today?!” 

I wonder if they would still be laughing if they knew I was bleeding again. 

Of course, I’m not actually stuck in a pit. There are no dirt walls that surround me, no one peering into the opening, and thankfully I still have all my fingernails. I might as well be though. The anger I carry makes me feel trapped and I no longer want to be. I’ve been an angry person as long as I can remember, but lately it’s gotten worse. 

“You’re a defiant little girl!” I can hear my kindergarten teacher scold me in my head. I remember smirking at her and saying, “thank you”, as if I knew what “defiant” meant. I had won. I had gotten my way and I had gotten a reaction-specifically from someone who had power over me. But I also remember going home and crying into my pillow and asking my stuffed bear why I was such a bad girl when I just wanted to learn how to read instead of playing ‘tag’ outside. 

Ever since the “great betrayal” I call it, as if naming the event would validate the plethora of emotions I feel, I fear I am going insane. I go to sleep later and wake up earlier. I eat less and drink more coffee. I call in sick and I pace around my room until the witching hour. It occurs to me that all this distress has been caused by a single person. The actions they took, the words they said, and the unfolding circumstances that followed. Maybe if I bottled the power they held and got drunk on it, I wouldn’t be so miserable. At this point it doesn’t matter what happened or who even did it. It’s been lost in the distance, covered by clouds of my rage.  

I turn my body around in my bed and stare at the stack of books standing beside me. I run my finger along the spines, my fingertip gathering dust from the books at the bottom of the pile. I’ve done so much reading lately and often wish I could live in the some of the pages. Even some of the most vicious stories I wish to be a part of. At least then my emotions would make sense, or I could die a valiant death.  

I don’t actually want to die. I just want the intensity filling my core to be removed. I think maybe carving it out would be helpful-like a surgical removal of a tumour. My tumour likes to move. Sometimes it lives in my stomach and has me lying in the fetal position trying not to vomit. Other times it lives in my head, an intoxicating mist that makes me regret what I say. Most recently it lives in my eyes and makes them leak. I feel my eyes well up as soon I think this. I scoff at myself in disgust and get up to make a cup of coffee. 

05:13. That’s what the clock on the oven says. I squint as I look out the kitchen window and the sunrise stuns my eyes enough to dry my tears. I decide to open the window and the sound of mourning doves fills the room right as the smell of coffee hits my nose. A wave of nostalgia passes through me, and I’m brought back to when I was 12 years old, in this exact kitchen. 

“Please, please!” I beg my father.  

“You’re going to school. That’s the end of discussion.” He folds his newspaper and downs his mug of coffee. 

“But please dad, I really don’t feel well.” I start to panic. This routine is starting to fail.  

“You’re giving me a headache, am I going to call in sick to work just because I don’t feel well?! Life isn’t fair, get your bag, we’re going.” He leaves me in the kitchen. “Get in the car.” 

I’ve run out of choices. He’s not relenting, well neither will I. “I hate you!” I scream, and I take his mug and throw it onto the kitchen floor. It shatters across the tiles. 

I don’t like remembering the rest. 

I’m brought back to reality once I hear the coffee machine finish, and notice my face is wet again. 

I pad back to my room with my mug. It’s comforting and warm in my hands. I watch the steam rise and dance and I say, “You would never betray me, would you?”  

I’m talking to drinks now. I really am going insane. 

I pick up a new book and pull the covers around me. I think this one is about an unsolved mystery or a classic or something. I don’t really know, and I don’t really care. I got 3 hours of sleep last night, it’s hard to care about anything. I’m brought back to six months ago. 

“Night shift is hard. I swear I only got 3 hours of sleep.” they said. 

“I know, that’s why I got you this!” I produce a large cup of earl grey tea. 

They gasp. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!” They take a large sip and I wrinkle my nose.  

“I don’t know how you drink that stuff.” I say. 

“Right. Because your bean water is so much better?” 

“Hmm. Fair enough I suppose.” 

“You really are the best.” They tell me. 

You’re not there anymore. I tell myself. Stop going there. 

I turn back to my book. Where did my book go? Oh. I hurled it across the room. It lies on the floor open and face down like a dead body. I don’t wish I was dead. I promise. 

They used to tell me I would do great things. That I was smarter than them and I would be successful. I believed them. I believed a lot of things they said. How much was the truth and how many were lies? Was it all a big lie, a big facade? I would confide in them for so many things. The childhood anxiety I went through. The adult anxiety I was going through. So different but so similar. The deep-rooted resentment of being the eldest sibling. The dating pool. But mostly their new job. 

A big fancy job with paid sick time and benefits and a union. I was told I wouldn’t like a job like that. I wouldn’t fit in to the “culture”. My parents and I would argue about it all the time. 

“It has so many benefits!” I would say. 

“It’s too hierarchical.” my mother would reply. 

“It’s stable-” 

“It’s political.” my father would cut in. 

I would roll my eyes and my parents would throw an abundance of synonyms at me: too stubborn, too uncooperative, too resistant, too opinionated, too confrontational, too angry. 

I finish my coffee and pick up the book off the floor. I bet throwing my mug would feel good right now. Instead, I set it carefully on my nightstand and breathe through a wave of nausea that roiled through my throat. The nausea could have been caused by a number of things. Lack of sleep. Too much coffee and not enough food, the acid-on-acid combination wreaking havoc on my stomach. But I have a feeling it’s not any of those. It’s the wave of anger trying to suffocate me again. It really is like a tumour. Eventually you start to feel the physical effects of it. Eventually it kills you. 

Don’t think I haven’t tried to “fix” this. Believe me, I have. I’ve spent hours reading up on “betrayal trauma” and “nervous system regulation” and practicing breathing exercises and running. Nothing seems to be working. I’ve taken days off work; I’ve gone to therapy. I’ve prayed and wished it away. Sometimes I can feel it root deeper inside me instead. 

I look at my alarm clock. 05:53. The doves should still be outside, I think.  

I’ve never been a morning person, but I cherish this time of the day. No one is awake except for the birds. Nothing has happened yet; there is no reason to be angry. 

I sit on the deck and listen to the doves. I can’t see them, but I can hear them. I wonder if doves have ever been angry. I don’t think so, they don’t have a reason to. They live each day the same as the last. Eat, sleep, sing, survive. And yet their songs are so sweet, so soothing. It’s no wonder doves represent peace. 

Protect your peace. Someone told me that once and I’m just now understanding. My memories are convenient. I was never really treated well by this person. I was so desperate for their validation; I excused their behaviour. My anger has been directed at everyone, and now it’s directed at myself. 

I’m so tired, and not from lack of sleep. Feeling so much and so deeply all the time is exhausting. I want my books back on my shelf. I want to go to sleep when the sun goes down and sleep in until the sun comes up. I want to drink coffee as part of my morning routine instead of using it to function. I want to eat-I'm so hungry. I want almond croissants and pasta salad and baguettes with butter. I want to live. 

I heard a quote once that stated: “I sat with my anger long enough until she told me her real name was grief.” 

It was C. S. Lewis that said that, but it never really made sense to me. I thought anger was supposed to be one of the five stages of grief, not a mask grief would wear. Although, I think of the many emotions I have myself have masked with anger.  

Sadness. Denial. Bargaining. Despair. Frustration. Embarrassment. Betrayal. Helplessness. Depression.  

And yes, grief. 

Often anger is personified and associated with things like fire, violence, the colour red. But I believe it’s used to hide the real emotions. No one is interested by a dull grey when their eyes are pulled towards a bright red. No one is watching the woman tread water, because they’re watching the house she lit ablaze instead. No one is watching her beg on her knees, they’re on their own knees begging for her mercy she wasn’t given. 

I see now I’m given two choices: Drown silently or burn alive loudly. 

I don’t like my choices. I refuse to accept them. I did my time. 

I hear a dove sing, and I hear it say, I’ve sent you a rope, you can climb out now. 

And so, I do.