Little Secrets

by Jennifer Hillier

Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life? —MARY OLIVER

And that’s what life is these days, isn’t it? A series of slips and catches, mistakes and remorse, a constant juggling act of pretending to feel okay when all she wants to do is fall apart. One day, all those balls will drop, and they won’t just break. They’ll shatter.

Hope lasts only so long, can carry you only so far. It’s both a blessing and a curse. Sometimes it’s all you have. It keeps you going when there’s nothing else to hold on to. But hope can also be terrible. It keeps you wanting, waiting, wishing for something that might never happen. It’s like a glass wall between where you are and where you want to be. You can see the life you want, but you can’t have it. You’re a fish in a bowl.

“I’d rather be rich than poor. But I’d rather be happy than rich.

said. I knew better. I needed to feel close to someone. I wanted to feel wanted, and beautiful, and seen. And you always make me feel that way. And I will always love you for it.” “As a friend,” he clarifies. “More than a friend.” Marin wants him to know that this is true, because it is. “So much more than a friend. But just … not like a husband.”

When you’re underwater, you’ll grab on to whatever’s closest to you if it means you can take one more breath.

“I’ve learned not to make comparisons. Hell is hell, in all its incarnations.”