I Am Angry at How Often I’ve Had to Be the Bigger Person

Dear Delyara, The phrase itself makes me furious now. The bigger person. The more mature one. The one who understands. The one who lets it go. The one who softens first. The one who apologizes for the tone even when the pain was valid. The one who keeps the room from breaking because she knows what breakage costs afterward. I have been the bigger person so many times I think parts of me have gotten smaller from the strain. I am beginning to understand that some of what I called grace was actually self-erasure in attractive language. And I am not proud of that anymore. I am tired of admiring my own disappearing act.