You are very, very, very angry

You, are angry. You have never, in fact, been angrier in your life. You're angry at the elderly, for their thirty extra years. You're angry at the bitter, for their wasted time. You're angry at the heedless, who complain in front of you about their lives.

Tanya smash

You are angry at the future, for going on without you.

You are angry at your husband, for his inability to understand, for his every wasted word, for his getting to go on after you're gone. Your husband is angry. You are angry at his anger.

You are angry at your children, for needing you far beyond however long you can promise to be there for them. You are angry because these promises, the daily, mundane promises of parenthood, are specifically denied you.

You are angry at your mother, who seems to be coping through an artful blend of denial and absence. You are angry at yourself for behaving the same way.

You are angry at everything, but most of all, you are angry at yourself. You are furious, in fact, to the point of clenched-fisted, nails-dug-in-palms, fitful paroxysms of self-loathing. You have always, always always! stopped just short of fulfilling your own promise. And now this: The coup de gras. The moment you were going to step back into the workforce, start kicking into the kids' college funds, sell a book or two. Write a few more . . .

Smash! Terminal diagnosis. Smash! You're set to abandon your children, your husband, your mother. Your life! Smash.

You have always been a positive person—you consider happiness a choice and you've always chosen it—but there are limits to the logic of this practice. How positively can you spin an MFA you can't use, a trilogy you'll never finish, a life you'll never live?

Smashing.