I Was Angry at Someone Who Wasn’t There

Dear Delyara, I spent part of today angry at someone I haven’t spoken to in a long time. I wasn’t planning to think about them. They just arrived — through memory, through one stray association, through whatever weird hidden door the mind leaves unlocked. And there it was again: all that old heat. It’s embarrassing how alive certain injuries stay. Especially the ones you’ve already explained to yourself a hundred times. Especially the ones you thought you had become wiser than. Maybe healing isn’t the absence of anger. Maybe it’s what you do after it returns. Today I wrote instead of reaching out. That feels like progress, even if it doesn’t feel graceful.