coming-of-age

I don__ know if this happens in all relationships, but I just got so sick of his all too familiar stories. I had heard these stories so many times that I could have recited them myself.

I didn__ want to get burned. I didn't want to be the other woman, but I wanted him with all my might.

Even though their marriage had been dead for over two years (her words, not mine), this put her in the role of the innocent. She was now a woman scorned. ~Shattered Reality

Not long after my mom died, my dad pretty much kicked me out of the house. He never said, __et out of my house,_ but instead, I came home one night to find all my clothes scattered all over our front lawn.

First of all, he was not my type. He was nice, considerate, unselfish and grounded; qualities I__ never experienced in a man. Usually, I went for the self centered, screwed up, ____ lost, will you be my mother_ type.

I had no intention of forsaking my wedding vows. I had strong morals and never could have imagined going against them. I was never even tempted to stray.

I was always on guard and I was always prepared for him to be upset with me. I had lived feeling uneasy and tense for so long.

Being married definitely took work. When we fought, I felt like I wanted to float away and drown, whereas before I knew I could walk away without any strings attached.

And in the silence what followed, I reckon our eyes had some long conversation our mouths could__e never talked through. Some long, looking talk about things gone and long since said. About cries out in the night and some long ago tangling of limbs. And about them betrayals done time and time again__y both of us__hat led to me pointing the Green Man__ rifle at the man what once loved me under the Green Man__ stars.

Maybe I__ lost something. Maybe I__ lost a lot__ore, even, than I could suffer__ut I still had my own self. And lonesome as I might be, wasn__ no force on Earth or from above what could make me less.

He wanted revenge and I knew he would not stop until he got it. I had to hope he would run out of fuel.

I may have smiled to myself as I watched the familiar pattern of the town pass, the bus cruising through shade to sunshine. I'd grown up in this place, had the knowledge of it so deep in me that I didn't even know most street names, navigating instead by landmarks, visual or memorial. The corner where my mother had twisted her ankle in a mauve pantsuit. The copse of trees that always looked vaguely attended by evil. The drugstore with its torn awning. Through the window of that unfamiliar bus, the burr of old carpet under my legs, my hometown seemed scrubbed clean of my presence. It was easy to leave it behind.

He had not been sleeping well over Christmas. Actually, he hadn__ been doing anything well over Christmas _ eating, sleeping, exercising, talking, looking after himself, laughing, crying_ No, he hadn__ really been crying despite all the pain he felt. It was just tearing him up inside, quietly. It was like his insides were being ripped up by an angered tiger.

Plus, once he did the requisite double-take and recognized me, he__ probably beat the crap out of any guy who looked at me in all my Snow White meets Frederick__ of Hollywood glory.

The one thing I do remember is that as I retraced my steps through all the familiar streets of my life, Inow felt completely lost.

Hope, in anything but myself, is just way too dangerous right now_

It__ always better to accomplish something than nothing, but coming of age is about more than learning who you are inside: it__ as much about who you are in relation to others _ and who you want to be

When I was twenty-something, I asked my father, __hen did you start feeling like a grownup?_ His response: __ever.