grief un-tangled, is that even a thing?

 I have been lost in nostalgia and reverie. Longingly remembering the past, days from my youth, feelings and thoughts over experiences and defined moments. How I loved to hear my Dad sing and how his joyful spirit was infectious. How he loved being happy and singing along to Hank Williams on the radio, or just singing along to the songs that lived in his soul. When I think of my Dad, often I get mad. I get mad at the family that "black-sheeped" him and made him into their expectations. Mad that they couldn't see beyond his actions to the gentle soul that lived inside his heart. Mad that the things that were expected of him were the very things that got him black-listed. Mad that he bore his burden and believed them. Oh.... this makes me mad. Mad about so many things in regard to his childhood, his adulthood, his rebel years, his misunderstood years, his fucked up views of love, and his later-in-life life. When a child loses their mother at the age of 8, they should be allowed to grieve. They should be loved and nurtured. Not tossed aside and targeted. 

But the older I get, the more I see the parallels. His life. My life. His shame. My shame. Familial. Societal. Individual. Collective. 

Such heavy burdens we were expected to shoulder and bury, at the same time. How can that be? Carry your cross, take responsibility for your actions, but bury it deep, carry that shame and count it as your own, even though it was thrust upon you from outside yourself. From places that you were never even meant to see. So that someone somewhere can feel less shame and blame for their actions and lack of action. 

I want to scream "SHAME ON YOU ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" and I want to walk away and burn bridges and carry torches and burn those fuckers to the ground. 

But we all know it is a matter of time, and not that much time actually, until I will come around to letting go, to gratitude, to live and let live. And thank God for that. Capital G god, not the god of gratitude or any other thing I might pair a descriptive with the word god with. But THE God. Thank God for Gratitude and letting go and crying and raging and screaming and doing it all again so that I don't have to stay angry. Carrying resentments makes me sick. It blackens my soul. It drives me to find sweet bliss, that blessed forgetfulness that I sought in a bottle, in a pill, in a man. And the never-ending shame that slithers in my shadow can only be battled with love. Martin Luther King Jr was right, "hate is too great of a burden to bear. I will choose love." (That might be paraphrased). 

This is how I feel as I write this post.