Unmissing

by Minka Kent

I’ve never met someone who claims to be “all knowing” or anything along those lines, but I do believe people exist who are intuitive. And not in any supernatural kind of way. They’re simply good at reading people—a trauma response.

As an introvert, making friends—and maintaining those friendships—has always been challenging for me.

My grandmother once said life is what happens between the curveballs and happy accidents.

Someone once told me that I’d only be my husband’s favorite until we had our first child, and that I’d only be my daughter’s favorite until she becomes a teenager and decides she hates everything about me. But I don’t think it has to be that way. I intend to be everyone’s favorite until my dying breath.

The future isn’t carved in stone—it isn’t even written in pencil on the back of a napkin.

But for now, I can’t stop focusing on the imbalance of justice. Everything else is background noise.

My whole life, I’ve never trusted quiet people; something about their busy brains and all the things they aren’t saying makes me nervous.

I realized then that it didn’t matter how strong a person was, how resistant they were to criticism and judgment—life could still wear a person down if they weren’t in their own driver’s seat.

“Yes,” I say. “Turns out the man I married . . . was nothing more than a monster.”

Never give a horse too much rein lest he think he’s the one leading the excursion.