I thought about death the other day. Why was I ever obsessed with dying? I wanted “sweet relief.” At least that’s what I told myself. I didn’t want relief. I knew deep down what I truly wanted. Revenge. I wanted revenge on everyone. The world. I wanted to say “fuck you” to God. “Fuck you” to the greatest gift ever given. No justice is out there for being forced into a life I didn’t ask for. I could inflict my suffering onto those who hurt me. How Poetic. Like a girl who has both loved and lost only to end up in a bar and find someone who actually values her. Takes care of her. Appreciates her.
Have you seen how that story ends? There is no knight in shining armor. That path of sought out redemption. Have you ever truly seen the life this idea yields? No one tells you about the middle-aged woman who’s popping pills with her wine during the middle of the week. The kids are at school. No, soccer practice. Dance lessons? Or was it a play date?
Her mind goes blurry.
She had happiness.
Was it? Happiness, that is. Or was it comfort? In a man who was her salvation.
Comfort. Now he’s always busy with work, supporting his family in a dead end job working him half to death. All so he can save for an overpriced college tuition to secure a future for his daughter at a state college where she will just end up with her M.R.S. degree to an alcoholic frat boy that took half of Tri Delt during his college prime. Then where will his little princess be?
The wine. The pills. How many has she had?
4 PM. Play date’s over. Soccer? Dance? Oh wait, school. But that ended at 2.
Her husband is home. He’s furious. He was pulled out of a meeting by his secretary who the school called through an emergency contact when the mother would not answer.
Why didn’t she pick up Camilla from school? Why didn’t she answer her phone? The questions spiral out of control. Like her marriage. Where is that comfort she so desperately needed in the bar that night 20 years ago?
She’s confused. He called her. Why didn’t she answer her husband?
“A nap,” she mumbles. A nap sounds good, doesn’t it?
“Why are you like this?”
Her mind wanders. The bar. That night. What would have happened if she hadn’t met “the one?” I’ll tell you what would have happened.
A spiral. It always gets worse. Maybe I lose my job? Maybe I’m in college and I drop out? Nowhere to go. No one to rely on. The breakup torments me. It’s his fault, I think. The blame comes back. The revenge starts to compile itself in my mind like an apple being skinned as it spirals to the ground revealing the juicy fruit.
And that’s where I realize the solution. My skin is gone, I’m naked to the world ready to be eaten up in the swirling mass of lies and loss that makes up life. SO much has happened to me. SO much I can’t go back and prevent.
They say hindsight is always 20/20, right? I see the red flags in my mind. So many warning signs. I ignored them.
“Boys will be boys” and “it’s just not the right time” and the excuses go on as if it’s some sort of comfort that the world and the society we live in drove us apart.
Wait. I have no job. I’m not in school. I have hit rock bottom. It can always be worse. I’m the girl sitting in the bar alone. I’ve loved and I’ve lost and here is where I meet my knight in shining armor!
I scan the bar, seeing all the faces that surround me in a constant motion of leaning, ordering a drink, waiting for said drink, then forking over cash for alcohol that is supposed to loosen me up and lower my inhibitions. They’ll take a chance, and one of these men will take a chance on me.
The night goes on and I’ve slowly sipped my way to the last gulp of my oxidized Blue Moon. I’m sober enough to still drive and nowhere near intoxicated to the point of going home with a stranger. No one has approached. My moment is gone. My knight in shining armor must have gone to a different bar.
Or maybe, just maybe, there is no knight. No white horse to carry me away on a journey towards endless wine and Xanax. Maybe this is what is meant to happen.
Here is the real story of how I find my happiness. I build it. With literal blood sweat and tears. I figure out a way back up off this rocky earth. I face the betrayal head on and radically accept my mistakes and the mistakes of those around me. I fought hard. I continue to fight. I can not die for revenge because that would only be in vain. The world would keep on turning. I would be a subconscious thought in people’s brains until that thought no longer served a purpose. I am my salvation. I am my knight in shining armor. Go back to school. Be someone. Be the woman who lived! In the end, you are not the sum of what happened to you. You are your reaction and your perseverance. So persevere.
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