The Growling Days

I don't often have days when I find it hard to sit within my own skin or to share space with anyone else. Today was one of those days. I'd had enough before it began. It was a feeling shared by at least one other colleague in our small team at work today. Is there such a thing as getting out of bed the wrong side? More likely it's a build up of stress that is gradually being recognised at a similar pace. All it takes is a night of little sleep - for whatever reason - and perhaps there is far less energy the next day to contain those ordinary frustrations. I was distinctly prickly. A day when even being polite to strangers might have been asking too much - and I know how to be polite.

At least on days like this I can be assertive without the anger and irritation bringing tears close behind. I don't do angry all that well. That may be the case for many women - anger gets turned inwards. It's hard to direct it at the external targets where it's often clearly deserved. I don't get angry for nothing. I work hard to earn that emotion. I don't do relaxation well either.

I like my work but it certainly hasn't felt easy recently.

It was my partner, Andrea, who gave me the word for the day. She left me a note for when I got in from work, "Hope you didn't have to do too much growling today." There were moments of shared growling in the office. There is some reassurance in that. We know where we're at; it's the others who have it wrong.

I may not be able to relax and I may have to hide tears of irritation behind a toilet door occasionally (very occasionally), but I don't give up my self-belief. No way. And on growling days there are no tears. There is only righteous, honed anger. On growling days there is no available space for anything to be turned inwards; it spills over until it finds its mark.

Growling days could be necessary, healthy even.
In all this, I can't help feeling I seep, not seethe.