Shadow Journaling

So I’ve decided to start shadow journaling. I have no idea how that will go but I think it could be good for me.

The prompt today: What do you wish your friends and family knew about you?

I needed you. I needed you to notice that I was hurt and struggling. I wore a mask that presented that my marriage was perfect. Why? Because you all constantly expressed how much you loved my husband and even at times talked about how devastated you would be if we got divorced. At one point, one of you even asked if we got divorced if he would still visit you.

None of you ever asked me how were things going. None of you said you loved me and that if things went bad that you’d be there for me. So for 25 years, I put on like things were perfect. My body ached in utter pain with how miserable I was and none of you could see it or feel my agony because you were too obsessed with the man that had picked me apart day in and day out since I met him.

This broke me. It broke me right along with every piece of me that he had broken in me.

I needed a place to go and cry. I needed a place to be held. And none of you were ever that person. None of you even offered.

When I made friends, I was chastised for not being a wife who always stayed home. Yet when he was at bars in Korea you said that was what men did. When I gave up on my dreams for him to pursue his, you said that is what a good wife does. You never asked him why he didn’t try to be his best at his dreams if I gave up on mine. You accepted mediocrity because that is all he strived for being the product of a home where everything was handed to him.

I had that fire, the drive, the passion, and unwavering energy, and you expected that I would put that fire out for the rest of my life.

Well here I am, building a bigger fire on my own and I don’t know that I plan to include you in on the future I want.

And remember, I always get what I want.