I Replied “No Problem” to a Message That Was, In Fact, One More Problem

Dear Delyara, That sentence came out so automatically it almost shocked me. Of course. No problem. Absolutely fine. Don’t worry. Meanwhile I could feel the real response sitting behind my ribs: Actually, this is one more thing. Actually, I am tired. Actually, the timing is bad. Actually, my emotional budget is already overdrawn. Still, what I sent was the usual graceful version. The manageable version. The version women get praised for until they are too flattened by their own manageability to remember what directness felt like in the first place. I hit send and felt immediately resentful. Not only at the message. At myself. Because the split between what I feel and what I send is getting expensive.