She doesn’t know what’s sadder: that her life is so painfully lonely, or that she knows it could be better and is unwilling to change. There’s a mountain on the other side. It isn’t insurmountable—it’s just not worth it. Would be at least a year till the dust settled. Maybe longer. Not worth the price. The effort. The time. The destruction. Not for her, when she made all the choices to be here and everyone else would pay for her to get out.
She has grown to hate marriage more than anything else in this world. She’s been married fifteen years to two men, so at this point she knows a little something about marriage—at least about hers. It is the closest thing she knows to a vampire draining the blood from your body until you die, then letting you come to. What’s worse is that you welcome it. You still worry if he’s happy, if he has enough, if dinner is right. Whatever you want, dear. Even as it drains you of your life force, exploiting every drop of love and compassion you carry, you only think of ways to give more.
Everything marriage claims to provide, it failed to provide for her. She was lonelier in marriage. She had less help and less support. Less touch, less compassion, less love. Even boyfriends—much as she loathed them—were willing to hold her, pat her head, hug her, kiss her… even if it was just in hopes of nutting. It was a means to an end for them, but the end was a worthwhile price for her to get the means.
Making out for an hour could do more for her than 6 months of therapy and 50 mg of whatever the doctor would prescribe. But it was a moot point when it wouldn't happen. Couldn't happen even if she begged.
Something about being legally and financially bound to her makes her repulsive. Why did they even propose to begin with? She fucking hates them for ever asking. She hates herself more for saying yes, for believing they would make good on the bullshit promises that babbled out of their lying mouths. That she had ever hoped she would somehow make this work.
It feels like divorce should be the answer, but then it feels like admitting she wasted a decade in this marriage. And she put in those ten years because she knew he was old and would die. He is still old. He will still die. And, selfishly, she wants to be legally bound to him when it happens, because she doesn’t want to struggle financially ever again. Not like before him. Surely she could pack her stupid need and want for passion and romance into a steel, soundproof box for a few more years—if only to be financially stable enough not to worry about money.
It’s Maslow’s hierarchy of needs twisted through a funhouse mirror. You have to fulfill the base needs first: the security of food, water, shelter, warmth—not just yesterday and today, but for a lifetime. Never holding your breath with worry as you swipe a debit card. Buying the five-dollar bread you like. Never waiting for payday. Never living in constant struggle. Not like her mother.
Yes, even Maslow says to take care of physiological needs before stupid fucking love-and-belonging needs. She tells herself she’s making the right choice.
It just hurts like a motherfucker right now.
Perhaps she just needs to take a warm bath.
Take a pill—something to smooth the edges, to correct what life itself won’t.
Drink a tea.
Read her horoscope.
It’s just the planets aligning weirdly, amplifying the depression today. Next week will be better. It’s written in the stars.
It's just one bad day.
It’s okay to wake up angry and hate what you loved just yesterday. Write about it and then move on.
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