Rock Paper Scissors

by Alice Feeney

To have wasted so much of our lives by not really living them, makes me feel so sad. We weren’t always the people we are now, but our memories of the past can make liars of us all. That’s why I’m focusing on the future. Mine. Some days I still picture him in it, but there are moments when I imagine what it would be like to be on my own again. It isn’t what I want, but I do wonder whether it might be best for both of us. Time can change relationships like the sea reshapes the sand.

I felt this in my SOUL.

Marriages don’t fail, people do.

Truth.

Forty might be the new thirty, but my skin is creased with wrinkles that were rarely caused by laughter.

I feel this, too.

He has always been very good at running away, especially from reality.

.

the roads to our dreams are rarely direct

Tell me about it...

Human beings are a strange and unpredictable species. I prefer the company of animals,

Same.

Four-legged creatures tend to make better companions than those with two, and dogs don’t hold grudges or know how to hate.

So true!!

sometimes the dust of our memories is best left unswept.

!!

I find peace in the quiet stillness and the remoteness of it all. We haven’t seen another soul for more than an hour, which makes this the perfect location for what I have planned.

Red herring?

Nostalgia is a dangerous drug, but I enjoy the sensation of happier memories flooding my mind. Maybe we’re not as lost as we feel.

Its like that a lot of the times.

I have bitten my tongue so many times already on this trip, it must be full of holes.

God do I understand this better than most.

We never bicker like this in public, only in private. We’re both pretty good at keeping up appearances and I find people see what they want to see. But behind closed doors, things have been wrong with Mr. and Mrs. Wright for a long time.

Is this book written about G and I???

I immediately regret saying it, but words don’t come with gift receipts and you can’t take them back.

I wish G understood this .

If every story had a happy ending, then we’d have no reason to start again. Life is all about choices, and learning how to put ourselves back together when we fall apart. Which we all do. Even the people who pretend they don’t.

She likes animals more than she likes people; I prefer fiction. I suppose the real problems began when we started preferring those things to each other. It feels like the terms and conditions of our relationship have either been forgotten, or were never properly read in the first place.

All people are addicts, and all addicts desire the same thing: an escape from reality.

Yep.

Different but same. But does that rule also apply to relationships? If we play the same characters for too long in a marriage, isn’t it inevitable that we’ll get bored of the story and give up, or switch off before we reach the end?

But I’ve learned to live with it. Like we all do when life deals us a less than perfect hand.

Most people can see the writing on the wall, even if they can’t always read what it says.

There must be fifty sets of our faces reflected back at us. Almost as though all the versions of ourselves we became to try and make our marriage work, have gathered together to look down on who we’ve become. Part of me is glad I can’t recognize them. I’m not sure I’d like what I saw if I could.

Word of the year: limerence noun. An involuntary state of mind caused by a romantic attraction to another person combined with an overwhelming, obsessive need to have one’s feelings reciprocated.

Isnt that how it all starts?

Everyone thought we were crazy and that the whirlwind romance wouldn’t last, but I’ve always got great satisfaction from proving people wrong. As have you.

Seriously ... So spot on

It’s harder to hide the darker side real you from someone you live with,

know what it is like to be abandoned by someone who is supposed to love you. There is nothing worse.

Truly.

I know you think words are important—which makes sense given your chosen career—but I have realized recently that words are just words, a series of letters, arranged in a certain order, most likely in the language we were assigned at birth. People are careless with their words nowadays. They throw them away in a text or a tweet, they write them, pretend to read them, twist them, misquote them, lie with, without, and about them. They steal them, then they give them away. Worst of all, they forget them. Words are only of value if we remember how to feel what they mean. We won’t forget, will we? I like to think that what we have is more than just words.

Believing in someone is one of greatest gifts you can give them, it’s free and the results can be priceless.

There are as many varieties of heartbreak as there are love, but fear is always the same, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m afraid of so many things right now. I think perhaps the real reason I am so scared of losing—or leaving—my husband, is because I don’t have anyone else.

Sadly true

On the rare occasions when I feel like I have met someone I can trust, I hold on. Tight. But my judgment can be faulty. There are some people in my life I shouldn’t have walked away from: I should have run.

This book feels so personal!!!

We weave our lives out of threads of opportunity and stitches of chance, nobody wants a future full of holes. But

Truth.

Some people say that marriage is like wine and gets better with age, but I guess it all depends on the grapes. There are definitely years that were more pleasurable than others, and I’d have bottled them if I could.

So they say..

I can’t remember the last time we touched each other—but my hand stops short, as if scared of getting burned. Affection is like playing the piano and you can forget how to do it without practice.

Unfortunately I understand all too well..

affection has been absent without leave for a long time in our marriage.

doubt he felt the same way, but feelings don’t

have to be mutual to be real.

The wind rattles the stained-glass windows, and I’m grateful for anything that might drown out the loudest thoughts inside my hea...

I wish people were more like books.

Me too.

If you realize halfway through a novel that you aren’t enjoying it anymore, you can just stop and find something new to read. Same with films and TV dramas. There is no judgment, no guilt, nobody even needs to know unless you choose to tell them. But with people, you tend to have to see it through to the end, and sadly not everyone gets to live happily ever after.

God why is this so real.

Because that wouldn’t fit with who my wife thinks I am. We’re all responsible for casting the stars in the stories of our own lives, and she cast me in the role of her husband. Our marriage was an open audition, and I’m not sure either of us got the parts we deserved.

Word of the year: growlery noun. A place of refuge or sanctuary for use while one is feeling out of sorts. A private room, or den, to growl in.

I like this

It’s hard to imagine feeling unhappier than I do right now. I didn’t mean to throw the paper crane on the fire, I just … snapped. It wasn’t my fault; it was his for making me feel this crazy in the first place.

I felt this.

You make me feel so unlikable, and unloved, and invisible, and…”

I feel this even more....