Envy

Envy is that quiet burning that takes hold of you when someone else receives what you wished for yourself. A colleague gets promoted, a friend moves into her dream home, a distant acquaintance posts holiday pictures from a country you have been dreaming of for years. And something in you contracts. Not from joy. From tightness.

You want to be happy for them. You know you should be happy for them. But beneath the polite smile sits something else: a dull ache, a hidden anger, a thought that cannot be shaken — why them and not me? And because you want to conceal this thought from yourself, it grows darker. It eats inward. It robs you of sleep. It poisons encounters. It makes you tired without your knowing where the tiredness comes from.