Revelry

by Kandi Steiner

No one ever gets married thinking they’ll end up divorced, and now that I was on the other side of that unfortunate destiny, I had to figure out who I was again.

For the first time in my life, I was owed nothing, and I owed nothing. Lonely or not, I was free.

No one may have owed me anything, least of all kindness, but it didn’t mean they wouldn’t give it, anyway.

“Yeah well, you ever wonder why so many have an opinion about what you do with your life, though? Is it because they really think what you’re doing is wrong, or is it because they need to convince themselves that what they’re doing is right?”

Funny, isn’t it, how often we fight what our hearts try to tell us. We argue with logic, digging our heels in, sure we know what’s best. This is right, we say, This is what I’m supposed to do. We stamp down the loudest voice, the one inside us, choosing to listen to the flurry of those around us, instead. But it’s not until that moment we truly listen and obey the very thing that pumps blood into our veins that we really find peace.

“And so an empath loved a narcissist. The more you loved to make him feel whole, the more power he had.”

so I laid completely alone for the first time in my life. And I felt every second of it.

“One day the word was revelry.

Maybe he was right. Maybe I did fail him. Maybe I’m not fit to be a wife.”

You can be married and still have dreams of your own. It’s about being a team in all aspects, not just the ones that benefit him.”

And it was then that I realized that though I was bruised, and maybe a little fractured, I was not broken.

“Sometimes we get so far down a path because we want nothing more than for it to be the right one, but the truth of the matter is we can’t force it to be.

Life doesn’t exactly give us what we need when it’s the perfect time. It’s not a pitching machine straight over the plate. Life throws curve balls—hard and fast, unpredictable. But you still have to hit that sucker or strike out swinging.”

And maybe that’s what love was, giving someone the power to shatter you and trusting that they wouldn’t.