Untitled

“I don’t want the world to see me, ’cause I don’t think that they’d understand.”
— Goo Goo Dolls, “Iris”

I spent my whole life trapped in silence. Trapped in a body I did not recognize. Trapped in a mind that would betray me. Trapped in someone else’s idea of who I should be. I opened my mouth. To speak. To scream. And nothing came out. My voice sank to the depths of my stomach. Banished to a pit of despair.

Most recently, I found myself trapped in a web of lies that were a feeble attempt to free myself. My efforts would not only be fruitless — they would, in fact, become a purgatory of punishment and survival. The noise around me was so very loud. And violently quiet all at once. I am so very exhausted. I have both freed myself and traded one prison for another.

🌸

Women in my family marry young and become mothers. Wives. The end. Identity realized. I never saw myself in that box. I was going to college. I was going to write. I was going to teach. I was going to do anything — except that.

I chose a university closer to home. My ex-husband — then fiancé — pretty much went with me. He didn’t attend classes. He was not a student. He went because I was there. He was with me — always — just as my shadow was always there.

Where I go, a man will always go.
Always.

🌸

We got married in the middle of my freshman year of college. I was already pregnant with my first child. We eloped in Reno, Nevada; the name of the little roadside chapel escapes me now. I wore the black dress I had worn to our high school winter formal the year before. Afterward, we went to Red Lobster for dinner. I had salmon.

I married him because I couldn’t say no. My mind screamed no. My heart screamed no. But no words would come out. My mouth said “I do,” and we were married.

I hate salmon.

Excerpt from a personal memoir, a work in progress. The end is not yet written.