My Anger Always Has to Wait Its Turn

Dear Delyara, By the time I have enough privacy to feel it properly, I’m already too tired. By the time I have enough clarity to name it, the moment has passed. By the time I could finally say what hurt, everybody else is calm again and I’m the one who would ruin the peace by bringing it back. So the anger waits. And waits. And then it leaks out sideways in the dish towel, in the sigh, in the way I close the fridge, in the too-flat “okay,” in the tears over the wrong thing, at the wrong time, with no good explanation. I think women carry a lot of secondhand anger like this. Anger delayed so long it starts acting like fatigue. Mine does.