sorting out feelings

I've been engaging in an internal debate recently about a situation in my life that gets my virtual Irish up (I have to go back about 8 generations to find the Irish dna in my family tree, so the impact is fairly negligible). Someone who is part of my life behaves in a way that serves to bounce me back and forth between feeling hurt and feeling angry. I'm not sure if the anger is masking the hurt, or if the anger has its own place of honor. It's probably both. I vascilate about speaking my piece. To what extent is healing from the hurt and dealing with the anger my work to do? What needs to be shared in order for the relationship to progress beyond my wounded and irritated state to a different place (which could be better or worse)?There is the whole "being honest" thing, which has its virtues. There are also risks. Risks can also be masks that prevent us/protect us from being vulnerable, and in that way can be a path-of-least-resistance response. As I say, I vascilate.

I mention this here because it is one of the things that occupies more of my days than I would like, and because it is a piece of life that I think we all, over the course of time, have in common. There are a variety of ways to deal with such occurences. At one extreme there are those that speak their minds and don't appear to be concerned about how what they voice affects others. At the other end of the spectrum are the eternally silent who either accumulate the wounds or find a way to process them and move on.

There is no textbook answer, only factors to be weighed, decisions to be made, and consequences to be handled, one way or the other. I try, in most cases, to aim for honesty. Sometimes a relationship, and the context in which it lives, is so complex that each wrinkle that occurs within it must be addressed on its own terms. Life is not easy. At the very least I make every effort to place myself in the Light, as Quakes are fond of saying. Whatever the choice, there is no better place from which to make it.