The woman she was ten years ago was doing<\/p>\n
what she thought she should.<\/p>\n
The marriage was over;<\/p>\n
she\u2019d known that for awhile.<\/p>\n
If he hadn\u2019t been so mean, she might have stayed,<\/p>\n
even with the infidelities and the money problems<\/p>\n
and all the rest.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It surprised her a little now<\/p>\n
that she\u2019d acted so quickly once the blinders fell off,<\/p>\n
once she stopped pretending that he wasn\u2019t two people,<\/p>\n
one for her and another for the rest of the world.<\/p>\n
Once he stopped pretending he was a man she could love.<\/p>\n
Once he started being himself at home.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Looking back, she had to admit<\/p>\n
she was kind of proud of herself that she\u2019d gotten away so clean;<\/p>\n
oh, it was terrible the first couple of years,<\/p>\n
and even now, an occasional sweet memory would surface,<\/p>\n
or she\u2019d see a couple in a restaurant that reminded her of them,<\/p>\n
and a sudden wave of loss and sadness would wash over her,<\/p>\n
and she would feel utterly bereft.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But only for a minute.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
After a minute, she\u2019d remind herself<\/p>\n
of the peaceful, good life she\u2019d found in a new place<\/p>\n
with her best people, and she\u2019d smile,<\/p>\n
knowing that she was still doing<\/p>\n
what she thought she should.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Gena Williams<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The woman she was ten years ago was doing what she thought she should. The marriage was over; she\u2019d known that for awhile. If he hadn\u2019t been so mean, she might have stayed, even with the infidelities and the money problems and all the rest….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1150,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1150"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128356"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128381,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128356\/revisions\/128381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}