Chapter 2<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/b><\/p>\n
I Matter. As she lay on the ground, stunned by the appearance of two words that had never occurred to her in quite that way, she noticed that the space behind her eyelids now glowed with energy. Those two words had pulled her suddenly out of the darkness of her thoughts into a space where her insides took on the yellow-orange glow of overcast daylight.<\/p>\n
Afraid, she opened her eyes, half expecting the words to be hovering in front of her. Instead, only the lake, the smog, the mountains, and the overcast sky filled her view. She took a deep breath, wondering at the power of these two little words. I. Matter. That\u2019s what she wanted to tell all those people in her past, the ones who\u2019d made fun of her, who\u2019d manipulated her into believing that she needed them or didn\u2019t or loved them or didn\u2019t. The ones who\u2019d made her lose her sense of herself even as she\u2019d convinced herself that having a partner would make her whole.<\/p>\n
The ferocity of the words\u2019 appearance scared her. Had she really not thought she mattered? Why did these two words knock her back on impact? She wanted to scream them to the world. But she was scared of what people would think if she screamed. Always worried about what other people would think. But isn\u2019t that what got her into this predicament? She took a deep breath. She couldn\u2019t do it.<\/p>\n
Then, their faces returned and the anger surged through her body, and she cried out as loud as she could, \u201cI MATTER!\u201d When the earth didn\u2019t shatter and no one appeared to ask if she was all right, she continued, \u201cLook at me! I am a human being, and I matter. My feelings are real. You can\u2019t have them.\u201d<\/p>\n
And then she slumped. She\u2019d been complicit in the whole thing. She\u2019d let them talk her into things she hadn\u2019t wanted to do. She\u2019d let them define her identity for her. She\u2019d never really known herself. And now, on the eve of her 40th<\/sup> birthday, she regretted every minute she\u2019d spent toiling over whether they really liked or loved her and what she\u2019d do without them. She could see now that she\u2019d been petrified of being alone. Because without someone, anyone, she\u2019d realize that she had no idea who she was. <\/p>\n She\u2019d never lived alone a day in her life. Sure, she\u2019d taken trips alone and found pleasure in days by herself, but how could she know who she was if she\u2019d always been attached, or been trying to become attached, or been getting over being attached. <\/p>\n Her heart dropped. Despair. What had she made of her life? Her hands fell to the earth beside her. Her feet splayed out like they had nothing left. The earth held her firmly, but she couldn\u2019t move. The feeling had weighted her to the ground. Where she had felt so freed by the realization that she mattered, she now felt like a boulder sat on her chest, refusing to let her move.<\/p>\n She lay there for a while. Just feeling the earth hold the weight of her body. \u201cThere\u2019s probably deer poop in my hair,\u201d she thought, by way of willing herself to get up. <\/p>\n But she didn\u2019t care. She\u2019d wasted her life, or at least those parts of her life that should have been most free and fun. She\u2019d never allowed herself to figure out who she was, to be herself. Just herself without everyone else\u2019s expectations and interpretations. And now, that time was gone.<\/p>\n She thought she should cry, but no tears threatened to spill over. Instead, there was nothing, like the two words had inflated her insides to unreasonable expectations and then disappeared, leaving a black hole in their wake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chapter 2 I Matter. As she lay on the ground, stunned by the appearance of two words that had never occurred to her in quite that way, she noticed that the space behind her eyelids…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[19,33],"class_list":["post-300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","tag-fiction","tag-wwol"],"yoast_head":"\n