Trapped

24/03/24

Some days I sit in this house feeling so utterly trapped. 

I’ve never fully gelled with and embraced this city, although at times it’s suited my lifestyle.

EH didn’t care for it either, even though it’s pretty much all he’s ever known.

We were supposed to escape together.  Instead, he escaped by himself and I’m left, stuck here. 

I want to run away, go somewhere there are no memories, be a stranger and start completely afresh. 

The trouble is, everything would still be inside me. The classic, ‘wherever I go, there I am’. 

Anyway, where would I go? How would I do it? 

I go over and over my finances.

I look at everything in this house (which, by the way, does feel like a hollow house and not a home any more) and realise I could sell everything I own and still not have enough to start a new life, It probably wouldn’t raise enough for a decent holiday. 

I really can’t fathom a way to escape. 

I feel desperate and panicky, Some days the sense of oppression is so huge it constricts my airways. 

The daily grind of wage slavery was just about bearable when I thought it was contributing to an escape plan. Now it’s back to being a grind that must be endured in order to keep a roof over my head.  

I thought we were forever, I really did. 

I’d become a proper smug married, so adept at covering up the not so good aspects. 

Even with all the imperfections, I wanted to be with him. I believed we’d push through the problems because I believed the love, the laughs, the good bits, would be the glue that held us together. 

How could I have been so blind and stupid? 

The pain of envisaging a life forever without him is so huge it seems it will squeeze my heart to a standstill.  I keep trying to move past the awful feelings, the puking, the crying, to find some kind of acceptance of what is.

I honestly don’t know how. That’s nearly as frightening and gut wrenching as the original pain I’m trying to resolve. 

I guess as he’s been able to walk away with what feels like barely a backward glance, he doesn’t feel any of this stuff. He doesn’t think of me and feel sad. He just feels relieved to be free, cos he doesn’t want me. 

But, but, but…. even though all that is blatantly clear to my mind, my emotions just can’t grasp it. 

I keep coming back to this glimmer of hope that maybe he’ll quell the anger and resentment he’s held onto all this time. Maybe he’ll see how we could do things differently. Maybe he’ll feel that letting go of the entire relationship isn’t what he wants.  Maybe, just maybe, he’ll decide he made a mistake, and maybe he’d be willing to tell me that. 

Pie in the sky? 

I know it’s the addict talking, but sometimes it feels like that pie is the only thing keeping me attached to sanity.  (And that is probably one of the least sane sounding sentences I’ve ever written). 

Then I loop back round to the fact that he’s abandoned me.

Here I am, stuck in this place, and I can’t figure how to afford to get out. 

Ultimately, I guess running away would be pointless anyway. Wherever I went I’d still be me, still messed up and lonely. Only now, also without a house or job. 

Some days I sit in this house feeling so utterly trapped. 

JP