There Is Anger In Me That Has Had To Become Extremely Well Mannered In Order To Survive

Dear Delyara, It almost never arrives in its own name. It appears as tiredness, withdrawal, sharpness, sarcasm, tears in the kitchen, silence that looks mature, headaches, the desperate need for everyone to stop speaking at once. I can feel it in my body often before I can admit it in words. I am angry about many things. About work. About disrespect. About money. About how often women are expected to endure without becoming “too much.” About how much I have had to explain away in order to remain likeable in rooms that did not deserve that level of emotional labour from me. And because I have spent years making anger socially acceptable before I am even fully allowed to feel it, it has become complicated. That complexity costs me. Sometimes I think what I really need is one clean honest room where anger can stand up without immediately having to become wisdom, forgiveness, or self-blame. I don’t have that often enough.