October 5

You don't easily let go of justified anger. Someone passed you over or treated someone else badly, and you said so. You were right. Your indignation helped you not to stay silent.

Then the matter is put right. An apology comes, the decision is reversed. Instead of relief, you may notice something odd: a faint disappointment. The apology seems too smooth to you, the timing too late. You look for whatever is left that still isn't right.

Somewhere along the way your anger has shifted without your noticing. As long as it was aimed at the wrong, it wanted the wrong to stop. Now it needs the other person as they were when they committed it. They mustn't change, so that you won't be any less right.

This is hard to recognise because both feel the same: alert, decisive, in the right. The difference may only show when this person does something right and you don't know whether you want to be glad about it.