Day 22

PROMPT: Write in the second person.
(From Toasted Cheese)

You told him that you’d rather he just stopped talking to you when you have to be in the same room together. It’s an unusual circumstance, an incredibly difficult one actually, but you’ve been managing the best that you can. You try to keep perspective on the situation, remember that it’s not going to be perfect, that you can’t be too hard on yourself. He has never been quite as self-aware. It’s part of his problem.

Instead of respecting your wishes or responding to your concerns he lashes out. “So you just want me to go off somewhere and die, is that it?” You take a deep breath, knowing that addressing his ludicrous outbursts hasn’t gotten you very far in the past. You want to tell him that you wish him no harm. That you want him to live a long, happy, and more importantly healthy life. You want him to understand that you just can’t be a part of it. That you need to take care of yourself instead. But years of these fights have taught you that these are not concepts he is capable of understanding. And again, you’re the one that has to bite her tongue. He never will.

You try to go about your days as if it doesn’t get to you, but there are times when having to see him feels fully unbearable. You feel like your life can’t move forward as long as he’s in it, but your closest confidantes tell you how far you’ve come in spite of it. You struggle daily to figure out what “being okay” is so that you can figure out how to get there. Sometimes you get a little closer. Other times you feel miles away. But that’s just part of living.