I hear the words that I don’t want to hear. It’s a mixture of disappointment, rejection, and anger all at once. The voice scratches at my core, and without any warning, I feel my body tense up.

All I see now is the repeated cycle again and again. It’s familiar. This feeling. It’s a curled up thick rope that settles in my stomach and something pulling the end, rubbing its ragged edges along my sensitive stomach insides.

My first instinct is to find what went wrong. Blame is easy. That helps relieve the pain fast. But it leaves a sticky residue of guilt that oozes slime like a snail inching across dry concrete. Every single inch hurts.

Then my second instinct is to blame again. Maybe even repeat the first. In a different way. It’s not the way the email was written. This time it’s the way the subject was written. It’s all the same. I stare at the problem, and the frustration mounts again, twisting now into my ear like a worm drilling a hole into my head.

Then my third instinct now is to hide. I am older now. I know, I hear, I feel, I see how the feelings are going to overwhelm me. I know better than to act out my anger. But I say it aloud, “I am pissed that it didn’t work out. Again.” And just by telling the world that I am angry, I am just a little bit calmer. Then I sit down to write this blog post.