Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 131486 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131486 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
They never knew Josiah and me as a set, as the couple everyone envied. When I was going through my dark season, I lost touch with most friends I was closest to. Not their fault. I shut many of them out. I met Hendrix and Soledad through the yoga class my therapist recommended to help reduce anxiety and improve my mood at my lowest point. Soledad lives a couple of streets over, so I knew of her, but it wasn’t until yoga that we really connected. The three of us hid on the back row watching everyone do their dog, cat, and cobra poses while we struggled to contort our out-of-shape bodies into the most basic positions. Maybe because I was so in need of reconnection, and they seemed to be, too, we grew close quickly. They don’t look at me with that careful sympathy I see in the eyes of everyone who knew me before.
“I know you guys went through a lot all at once,” Soledad says.
“Yeah, we, um…It was a lot.” I take a fortifying gulp of my drink. “You know Josiah’s aunt Byrd passed away soon after we opened in Skyland.”
Pushing down the emotion that tries to break through the surface, I force myself to continue. “Business tanked. In that state, we couldn’t hold our own in Skyland. Not with the quality of restaurants around here. Maybe we would have fared better if we’d stayed where we were. Stayed who we were.”
But Josiah had always seen us turning the restaurant into an upscale destination spot. And it would have gone off without a hitch had life not hitched every which way but loose.
“You don’t talk about it much, the divorce I mean,” Soledad says. “Did you guys try therapy?”
“Josiah’s allergic,” I say wryly. “He doesn’t do therapy. I wanted to, but…”
“At the church where I grew up,” Hendrix says, “they always said you ain’t got a problem God can’t fix. What can a therapist do that God can’t? That mindset kept a lot of folks from getting help.”
“Josiah’s reasons had nothing to do with faith,” I say with a twist of my lips. “He just thinks it’s a load of bullshit. Deja and Kassim talked some to a grief counselor at school, but aside from a rough patch or two, they bounced back okay. Couples therapy? Josiah didn’t think it could help, and by the end, neither did I.”
Things had gotten so bad, I felt like I was suffocating in that house, in that marriage, and I had to get out. It felt like the whole world was resting on my chest every morning, and it was all I could do to get out of bed.
And everything hurt.
That’s the part of depression people don’t consider, that at times it physically hurts. My therapist helped me understand that the back pain and the headaches I developed were most likely related to stress, and stress hormones like cortisol and noradrenaline contributed to my apathy and exhaustion. Which exacerbated my depression. It was an inescapable cycle that left me looking up at my life from the bottom of a well, the walls slippery, and seeing no way out.
And it all hurt, including being with the man I’d loved more than everything. After how we’d loved each other, the way we hurt each other was destroying us.
I’ve made a little bubble for my friends and me, one that protects my fragile joy and wards off the hurt of the past. I know I’ll have to tell Hendrix and Soledad everything soon. If therapy has taught me anything, it’s that you run from your pain in a circle. You end up exhausted, but never really gaining ground. I have to stop running, have to share with them all the ways life popped the seams on a world perfectly sewn together. For now I share a little at a time, and for tonight, I’ve shared enough.
I clear my throat and push out a laugh. “Is this a celebration or what? Let’s eat before Sol ages another year.”
The night turns out to be just what I needed, and I hope what Soledad deserves. She’s the hardest-working woman I know and sees her life’s mission as raising three beautiful humans to be confident women who make the world a better place. Some might judge that, say a woman as smart as Soledad could do so much more. I see the power in choosing your own more.
“So we doing this or nah?” Hendrix asks hopefully once we’ve settled the bill. “I got a roll of ones burning a hole in my Louis. Strip club?”
The answer is written in Soledad’s eyes, sketched in the rueful tug of her lips. “Rain check? I actually am class mom in the morning, and I need to get home and check Inez’s science project. I bet I’ll have to help her because Edward…”