n.A relief at the end of something you had defended for years.
The Human Diary editorial term
The Relief
He said it at about ten past nine on a Sunday and Priya's first feeling — before the shock, before anything appropriate — was relief so pure it frightened her.
"I don't think I can do this any more."
And something in her chest, four years compressed, said: oh, thank God.
She kept her face still. She has never told him. It is the single most shameful thing she has ever felt and she has come, slowly, to think it was also the most honest.
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She cried afterwards, properly, for about three weeks. That was real too and she resents the implication that it was not.