What you don’t know is how hard it
is to maintain grace and poise when inside you are raging and just want to stamp
your feet and scream obscenities.
What you don’t know is that smiling
helpful person who is ready to jump in and assist wherever she can once felt as
worthless as a 3 dollar bill.
What you don’t know is that it is
impossible sometimes to bit her tongue from telling the children the truth,
from screaming it loud from the rooftops and to clear that darkness that has
been residing there since it all began.
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But how can you? How can you speak out? You can’t.
You are not allowed. You are
meant to be a fair and kindhearted person and so being that way, he gets to
live guiltless and pristine in his actions in their eyes.
But it isn’t fair. Not to you.
Not in the least when you plaster that smile on your face and say have fun. When you listen intently to their stories and
feign happiness at the marvel that he is allowed to be to them. It aches.
It hurts so badly.
So, you bury it. You hide it deep down inside where zoloft,
therapy and prayer get to linger. The
occasional bitch session to your sister, to your dear friend, to your poor
husband held hostage in your pain and forbidden to retaliate.
You soldier on. You overachieve. You are the room mother. You are the leader, the volunteer, the woman
on the soapbox for every cause and event in town. You do this not as a penance or a sacrifice,
but as an effort to control something good.
An outlet to chip away at the hateful feelings you keep squashing
down.
You give them more than you should,
you know this. You glow with pride at
their triumphs and cheerlead when they falter.
You make sure every moment of their childhood is as magical as you
remember yours as being and add a touch more to make up for the times where
they feel slighted.
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But,
what YOU don’t know, don’t realize until you are pinned down and made to see is
that even when they “hate” you or are “never speaking to you again”, there is a
light that shines around you. You feel
drab and dumpy and tired, yet they see sunlight, they smell ivory soap, they
feel warmth. They comfort themselves in
your embrace, to them YOU are home. Remind
yourself dear author to allow that light in when you are angry, when you are
ready to scream.. You are an imprint in
stone, his is only in sand..