I chew my lips so badly that I must put chap stick on at least four or five times a day to prevent the skin from chapping and breaking. When I go to bed at night, my jaws ache.
I never leave the house unless it's to go grocery shopping or with Keith. I don't even know where the local library is.
I wear the same two linen shirts and two cotton skirts all week long.
I tell myself this is fine, so long as I keep writing, jogging and the house clean. Which I do.
Most of the time, I think I'm happy. It's hard to tell sometimes.
My days are defined by these obscure internal crises that no one else ever knows about, unless I happen to blog about them. Things having to do with self perception: my perception of everything from my general way of living to a specific comment I left on facebook.
It doesn't matter what I say or do, at some point, it will feel like a terrible mistake and will follow me around, my constant companion for the rest of the day. I've almost stopped commenting at all, because of this, to try and avoid it.
Most of the time I'm happy to see Keith pull up in the driveway and go striding down to the mailbox. Sometimes he's arrived in the midst of an intense internal weather system that doesn't want to give way for him; I want to continue absorbed and wrestling.
I am like the crazy, eccentric and creative writer person that scare other, more normal people. I wonder if I could have turned out differently if I had tried. Would I trully want to be different? Different in what way?
I wonder if this version of me is truly the result of my choosing, over and over again, personal authenticity over society's expectations. Or is this just the result of my anxiety wearing away at me, like wind scouring the rocks?
I wonder what kind of story I would write, if I wrote about this me- the thirty three year old, infertile, anxious shut in who is also the warm and passionate wife who is also the woman with the spectacular, adversarial and fertile internal life.
Yesterday I wept. My brother and his wife were given a little girl. Their life was added to, was enlarged in every way.
In the light of this, my own life seemed so futile, like a grown up playing in the sandbox. Who cares if I can write? What does it matter? It won't change the world. I'm not a genius; I just have a natural ability.
My body seemed so broken, so worthless. Already having been the sexual plaything of pedophile, already spent, spoiled, plundered. And now broken, yielding me nothing. Just an empty vessel.
I just let myself grieve. Then I wrote. I forced myself to continue writing. After all, what am I going to do? I have this life. I have this day stretching out in front of me, full of emptiness. I might as well write.
