Beautiful Ugly

by Alice Feeney

Marriage is made of a million beautiful and ugly moments stitched together into a shared tapestry of memories, all of which are viewed and remembered slightly differently, like two people staring at the same painting from opposite ends of a room.

“People rarely know what they have until they lose it. They spend their lives searching for a better one, wanting more, needing more, blind to the fact that they already had it all. I think sometimes it’s only when something gets taken from a person that they appreciate what they had.

Trees grow down as well as up and I think it’s the same with people. The more we grow up, the more we learn to feel down.

I have to stop reliving the past and focus on my future. I waste so much time replaying old conversations, wondering if things might be different now if I had said something different then. But it’s all a waste of time. Wishing you could change the script of your life when the scene is over is pointless.

“I think sometimes things have to get really dark for us to see what we have. The world always looks more beautiful at night, when the darkness hides everything that is ugly.”

“Men still rule this world and as a result the world is broken. Men still hold most positions of power, men control governments, men control the media, and it is always men who start wars. Men have tricked women into thinking they see us as equals, but real equality, for all women everywhere, still feels like little more than a pipe dream.

The only certainty in life is uncertainty. We’re all just a bad roll of the dice away from being right back at the bottom of the ladder we spent our whole lives climbing.