Realization

She sat in the living room with the TV blaring. Lately she didn’t know what was wrong with her……she felt almost depressed. Just last week she was so happy, enjoying her first Christmas with her new husband and her family. Now all the decorations were put away in their boxes and there sat the barren Christmas tree that had been borrowed from her grandparents in order to save money. It was almost like a big sign echoing the way her heart felt…..empty.
But why? That was the one thing she couldn’t figure out. She was a smart woman. She could understand almost anything thrown at her in her college classes, and had never had a problem understanding her book work. However, she could never understand her feelings. This just sank her into deeper depression. She was concerned about the way she felt not only because it was unusual and scary, but also because she knew her husband was getting frustrated with her feelings and actions. One minute she was up, the next she was plummeting down. She had actually cried at her nephew’s basketball game. This was NOT normal.
She admitted she had a slight problem with pain medications. Some people liked alcohol, others drugs, but she turned to a more “sophisticated” high because she, and others around her, had high expectations of herself; drugs and alcohol were not acceptable. She could lie to herself all she wanted to, saying she had a headache that wouldn’t go away, but she took the pills because it was the only thing that could make her feel better. That made her no better than any of the other addicted people out there, no matter what their high of choice was from. She had taken the pills just 30 minutes ago……but hey, she felt better.
When her sister-in-law called to tell the good news that she was pregnant, it made things harder on her. She was extremely jealous, because now that she was married all she could think about was having a baby. She knew that it was not something she could handle at this point in her life, with three years of school left and no job. But, God, she just wanted a baby. Maybe it was because she thought it would get her more attention from people, and that would make her feel better. She was so lonely lately that she would do anything to be around people she could talk to. Or maybe it was because she was scared she wouldn’t be able to have a child of her own when the time was right. It was hard for her parents to have her, and her husband had been told it might be hard for him to have a child. They could adopt, but it just wasn’t the same…she wanted something that was born from the love they shared, not from a one-night stand some strangers had. But, the feeling was probably a little of both…plus it seemed everyone was having a baby, so it just looked like the thing to do.
They couldn’t raise a baby in that small house—they barely had enough room for the two of them. Not that she was complaining; they had completely turned that house around and made it their home. It was full of things that said “we are here and we are happy.” If only she could decorate herself like she did the house, making her feel those words.
She tried to think back to what might have triggered her to feel so badly. To anyone hearing her story, they might say it was a bad childhood, but it wasn’t that. She had a wonderful time growing up, and she had been well taken care of. An only child, she had always had the attention she needed from her parents, and they had given her everything she wanted. She had gone through the ugly duckling stage for a while, as most kids do, but she had come out of that a fairly nice looking woman, with two nose surgeries to help. She had been very ill for about four years of her life, but she had triumphed over that and was fine now, only having occasional flare ups of stomach pain. The only thing in her childhood that was in any way bad was the way her grandmother favored her older cousin over her, which had always hurt her and gave her feelings of inadequacy. So what had her so screwed up now?
Her wedding was beautiful, and she had married the love of her life. They hadn’t fought much, and thinking back now, she couldn’t even remember what any of their fights were about. She had a hard time telling him why she wasn’t happy sometimes, but that was due to the fact that she had never had anyone to tell when she was younger, and she grew up keeping things to herself. She was sure she would break the habit one day and be able to tell him everything she felt, when she was feeling it--it was just a little hard. She didn’t want to tell him a lot of times because she didn’t want to make him feel bad, and she didn’t want to cry. Her tears flowed very easily, and she hated that about herself. In fact, despite all the great things in her life, there was a lot she didn’t like about herself, her emotions being the biggest. She hated not understanding things because she was a perfectionist—always had been, and probably always would be. She wanted to change for her husband, but can you really change somebody?
She had just found out that he had been keeping the fact that he dipped from her, and it had really hurt her. She thought that if he was lying about that then he could easily lie to her about anything. She thought she knew him better than that, and that he would never lie to her. But, she was wrong, and she shouldn’t have put that much trust in him. Maybe then it wouldn’t have been such a surprise and it wouldn’t have hurt. He wanted her to trust him, but how could she when he had been deceiving her all this time? He said he wanted to stop, but if he really did, he would have done it a long time ago. But, then again…there were her pain pills--the way that she made herself feel better. She wanted to stop that, but she hadn’t. Maybe she shouldn’t be so hard on him. Actually, she really hadn’t gotten that mad at him, which surprised her…she was just really disappointed and scared. What if something happened to him? What would she do then? She wouldn’t have anything to live for because everything she had ever wanted would be gone with him. He was her life.
Which was why she had to get her emotions under control. If she kept on going like this, he might get tired of it and leave her. How can you get something under control when you don’t even understand why you’re feeling it? Maybe she needed to get some professional help……or maybe she just needed to stop worrying about herself, suck it up, and move on.
Perhaps she just needed to stop pretending that it was someone else she was writing about. She was me.