A Separate Peace*

Revelations are an odd sort of thing.  What is a true revelation anyway?  Are they common or rare?  As for me personally, I simply don't come across revelations, of an important sort, all that often.  Maybe in the "less than the number of fingers I own" kind of frequency.

By way of definition, I can claim a revelation has occurred when an important thing happens:  I find myself in a position where, pre-revelation, I would feel/think/react in a certain way but now, post-revelation well, it's different.  A kind of small victory of sorts.

Anyway, my revelation is something of a follow-up to a prior posting1.  It breaks down to this:  I was very angry about how I lost my prior job.  Not the business rationale behind the decision (I understand that part).  Not how I was treated from a financial perspective post job-loss (exceptionally well, for which I am very grateful).  Not how my severance package was actually explained to me (with patience and understanding).  Rather, I was angry that the actual notice came in the form of a 30 second (or so) video call, devoid of compassion or empathy.  After nearly three decades of dedicated service, after having been a true patriot for my former employer, I deserved better than that, and it made me angry.  Exceptionally so.  I know that I've talked around that point a few times over the past year or so, but the whole thing is far more clear to me now.  I'm using the past tense here, and that's not entirely correct because I am still angry about it.  In fact, I may always be angry about it.

So here's the nut of the revelation:  I no longer feel guilty about feeling angry.  I no longer feel like I should just "get over it".  I am okay with my anger.  While I am angry over what happened, I am also at peace with that anger.  I accept the feeling for what it is, and for as long as it lasts. 

It seems oh so very simple to write this all out2, but in reality, it was far harder for me to get to this point.  Harder as in months worth of work.  Sometimes the simplest feelings can be the most difficult to understand.









(*) The title comes from THIS book, which I attempted to read once when I was in middle school.  "Attempted" as in unsuccessful due to a lack of motivation.
(1) Anger.
(2) It has actually taken about three hours to write this posting, including three major re-writes.  So much for simple.