Slow build

Something I’m coming to learn about myself is that my anger takes a LONG time to break. When something happens and people are watching my reaction, more often than not I am calm. My instinctive reaction is to forgive. But that doesn’t mean that I remain unaffected. Maybe it’s shock? Whatever it is, my anger rises in the days after the fact. A slow swell that nonetheless is powerful as a tsunami. Yet after it crests and breaks, my instinct to forgive re-emerges. I’m stuck feeling like I am not entitled to my rage because I have already expressed forgiveness. And if I express it, people question why I didn’t express it immediately. And after expressing it, when I am back in a space of forgiveness, people act like I could irrationally enter a rage at any time or like I always hold past offenses against them. So I try to hold my tongue as my anger swells and crests. I know I will be back in a place of forgiveness afterwards, and I’d rather not muddy the waters. But forgiveness is not the same as pretending it didn’t happen. Our interactions will not remain unaffected.