I can’t write today. The words are just not there. This week’s writing prompt seems like it should be easy. All we have to do is choose one of these prompts:

• If only I had listened…
• I listened carefully and this is what happened…
• I wish someone had listened to me…

All we have to do is choose one of those prompts and put 250 words to paper. But I can’t do it today. It’s just 250 words, but I feel overwhelmed by the prompt.

If only I had listened… Well, I’m always listening. I’m an observer.

I listened carefully, and this is what happened… I observe and I listen, but have I ever listened and taken action? I’m sure I have at some point, but nothing comes to mind right now.

 I wish someone had listened to me… Okay, I do have an answer for this one, but now I fear that if I post it, it might be too dark.

I wish Dave had listened to me and gone to the goddamn doctor all those years ago. I wish Dave had listened to me when, years before he died, I said, “Hey, I’m worried about you. Can you please go to the doctor? I don’t want to be a widow before I’m 40!”

But he didn’t listen until it was already too late. I became a widow at 37. I regret those words every single day. But I’m also fucking angry. Why didn’t he listen to me? Why didn’t he hear how upset I was when I said those words? I meant that. I didn’t want to be a widow before I was 40—or at any age, for that matter. And now I’m 41.

I don’t even know if going to the doctor when I said those words would have helped. I don’t know if there’s anything that could have been done for the condition he had—the condition we didn’t know about because he wouldn’t listen to me and go to the fucking doctor. Maybe there’s nothing we could have done, but maybe there was. I don’t know, because he wouldn’t listen to me. And now he’s dead, and I’ll never know.

I wish Dave had listened to me, because now he’s gone, and I’m left with overwhelming doses of grief and anger and love and gratitude for the time we had and sadness for the time we’ll never have.

In the first paragraph, I said, “I observe and I listen, but have I ever listened and taken action?” And now I am reminded of a conversation I had with my mom about a year into my first marriage. I worked for her at her daycare, teaching preschool. On our way to a continuing education workshop, she turned to me and said, “Hey, are you okay?”

Thinking nothing of it, I said, “Yeah, I’m fine.”

 “Yeah, but are you okay?” she pressed.

I was confused. I had just told her I was fine. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you say you’re fine, but are you okay? You used to have this sparkle in your eyes, and in the last year, you’ve lost that sparkle. I’m just worried about you.”

I broke down, but only a little. “I don’t know,” I told her. “I don’t know. Me and Danny, we just fight a lot, and it wears on me.”

I couldn’t bring myself to tell her about the physical, sexual, financial, and mental abuse, so I condensed it down to “we just fight a lot.” I still don’t why I didn’t tell her. We just kept secrets in our family.

“The first year of marriage is hard,” she told me. “It’ll probably work itself out. But I’m always here if you want to talk about it.”

I said, “Okay,” and that was the end of that conversation.

The thing is, I did want to talk about it, but I didn’t. I was afraid she would be mad at me or disappointed in me if I told her what was really going on. I had no reason to think that, but that’s what I thought.

But I did listen to her. When she said my eyes had lost their sparkle, something about that hit home for me. I really can’t explain it. It felt like a revelation. If my fear and unhappiness were manifesting themselves physically, maybe something was wrong. Maybe what was happening to me was not as normal as I thought. Me and Danny separated for the first time not too long after that conversation.

So maybe I can write about this. Maybe it’s not the prompt that’s overwhelming me. Maybe it’s the fact that all of my responses are somewhat dark, and for whatever reason, today I am worried that my classmates will grow tired of reading about my trauma. But trauma is what this prompt is bringing up. Maybe it’s not the prompt that’s overwhelming me, but fear of how my response will be perceived. I shouldn’t have this fear—I know class is a safe space—but for whatever reason, today I do. So, today, I must be brave and answer the prompt honestly. My trauma is part of my story, but sometimes I wish it wasn’t. Sometimes I wish I had really positive things that came to mind when given a prompt. Today is not that day, so today I must be brave.

Photo by Ryan Snaadt on Unsplash