I pause and kick the broken asphalt just in front of the filthy right toe of my Asics. I need to change to a new pair, but I’m resistant because it’s still such shitty weather. Almost there, I think. Fucking asshole, I say into the foggy early morning air. What is bubbling inside of me is so unhinged, so irrational that I don’t want to give it space to expand. I want to kneel and pound my hands against the oft neglected roadway until they are rendered scraped and bloody. I want to sit on the dog-shit riddled curb and place my head in my hands and cry until my voice is hoarse and my eyes burn. I want to run as fast as I can to the water’s edge and scream until neighbors emerge from their homes, roused by disturbing and foreign noises outside.
It doesn’t make sense that I care that it was a woman driving, but also, it’s perfect in the worst ways possible. Not a teenage boy who doesn’t know how to drive yet. Not a man racing to get to the train station. A woman.
And now, I imagine her, in handcuffs and sobbing, telling some overpaid, undermotivated member of law enforcement that she was just trying to get to where she needed to be on time.
You don’t understand, she would moan, Henry forgot his lunch and it’s always my job. It’s always on me. I must be at work on time, but also, I’m the person responsible for the forgotten lunches. Also, permission slips and far away soccer practices and various activities to entertain on school vacations. I’m a managing director at an advertising firm, and I work fifty hours a week, and still, I’m the one who has to do the things. All the things. All the cleaning and cooking and hugging and reprimanding. All the vomit clean up and band aid affixing and broken heart soothing.
And Captain Dumb-Dumb will be placing her in the back of his vehicle to take her to the station, and will only be half listening to her, if even that, but she will continue talking. His name is actually Derrick, and he will scroll his social media at red lights on the way to bring her in and take an extra moment on the account that he loves-the one that talks a lot about the way modern women are crushing men’s masculinity and spirits. He’ll throw a heart on a new post without listening to it and swipe out of his account a few seconds after the light has changed. He will feel a quick moment of unmatched adrenaline knowing that the cars behind him wanted to honk their horns but didn’t, because…police vehicle.
At some point he will think about the woman droning on in his back seat, Sarah. He will think about how he doesn’t see many of her, but when he does, it’s usually something outrageous like this. Too intoxicated at a lacrosse meet and screaming bloody murder at an unsuspecting ref, too rowdy at a PTA meeting and losing her shit on the stay-at-home mom PTA president (who did not deserve to be decimated for asking that all snacks be organic going forward, in addition to the nut-free, dairy-free, gluten-free doctrine that was conveyed at the beginning of the year), or perhaps, and ultimately his favorite, too emotional over a fender bender she caused in a Trader Joe’s parking lot (when she was going to pick up organic, gluten-free, sugar-free, nut-free, dairy-free cookies, because her husband just simply forgot, even though it was the only thing she asked him to do on her seven page ‘To Do’ list).
Derrick doesn’t see many of Sarah, and still, he wishes that she would just shut the fuck up. He wants her to stop bitching and moaning, to stop whining about her life. He thinks about the Instagram post he recently liked (posted by Bros Before Hoes) and how Sarah is exactly the kind of woman they were talking about. Entitled, unappreciative, whiny and honestly, a little resistant to work hard enough to shed those extra pounds she put on after popping out a couple of kids. Is it that hard to find time to go to the gym, Sarah?
And if Sarah knew what Derrick was thinking in that moment, she could perhaps correct his thinking. She could rebut his arguments. She could explain that she’s grateful, but also, tired. That she loves her husband and her children, but also, just needs a break. She would likely tell Derrick that she belongs to the gym, but it’s not always easy to fit it in, and also, she is fighting the ever-challenging battle that is perimenopause. She knows that she could take a drug to help with this whole situation, but she stubbornly wants to do it a different way, so she’s trying. And also, it’s hard to make healthy, home-cooked meals when you are busy doing EVERYTHING ELSE, ALWAYS.
If Sarah knew what Derrick was actually thinking about her, she might stop crying and start getting angry. Really, fucking angry. Sarah might finally alchemize and exorcise the rage that sits low in her belly on a daily basis. The pissed off feeling that she treats with a ten-minute meditation she’s chosen to listen to (Peloton app) through her old and failing Airpods as she’s drinking coffee (with cream and Splenda, because she just can’t) and fielding the fifty emails that came in between the hours of 11 PM and 7 AM. Sometimes the sound crackles in her ear, and she thinks that she should finally just upgrade, but then she remembers that she told her husband she needed a new pair two years ago and decides that she’ll just wait.
Eventually he’ll remember and do it, she whispers to herself, as she scrolls through written demands of her.
She’ll chase her coffee with Tums in numbers that exceed the recommended serving. She read once that there are issues with taking too many antacids, but she also feels her guts clench whenever she writes in her notebook something else to do for someone. Anyway, she has decided that Tums are a cure-all for such discomfort. She cannot delegate or ask for help or say no, so instead, she will risk kidney damage. She even thinks that perhaps with kidney issues, she will finally be able to take that break she so desperately needs.
And that’s just it. Sarah needs someone who understands all of this- her burdens and obligations, her responsibilities and time management nightmares. She needs someone who wants to make life easier instead of giving her one more fucking thing to do. She needs someone who wants to give her a hug and cut her a break instead of judging her or further breaking her spirit. Sarah doesn’t need her well-meaning but useless husband, or her woman-hating female bitch of a boss, or Captain Dumb-Dumb.
Sarah needs me.
Except that Sarah was speeding to drop Henry’s lunch off and decided to blow a stop sign, and instead of talking to me, she killed me.
You see how that works?
Happy Women’s History Month.
X
L.
thepathtoworthy.com 