I have to confess something. I enjoy reading Anne Lamott. Okay, okay, I know that makes me more touchy-feely than I usually admit. She is very lovey. She talks about mystical things. She freely admits to praying (although she uses the F-word frequently in her books about “faith”. I like this in a person.) She talks about breathing.

She is very real, and I admire this. She talks about her parents and her son with a mix of love and frustration and grumpiness. She admits, in public, in her writing, to sometimes being angry, sometimes disliking her loved ones, to having to work very hard to forgive them.

I like to think I’m like her in a lot of ways, but I don’t share this ability. I can’t easily look at someone I love, look them in the eyes, and say “I’m really angry with you.” “I am mad.” “That was a bad thing you did. To me.” Instead, I’m the sort that says, “Oh, gosh, I’m sure you didn’t mean to run over my dog. It’s okay. I was meaning to get rid of that old thing soon anyway.”

I minimize. I deflect. I say, “I’m fine.” Fine is my F-word.

But I am lying. It is not Fine to run over my dog. I loved that dog. Sometimes I forget that it happened, but other times I remember the dog, I miss the dog, and I want to cry and rage and say “I hate you!” But I don’t do that. I am Fine.

And in doing so, I wrong not only myself (and believe me, I do wrong myself), but I wrong those that I love. They don’t understand why I pull back and stop engaging. They don’t know I’m angry. They don’t ask for forgiveness, because they don’t know there is anything to forgive.