Guatemala.

​I just canceled our trip to Guatemala. Sitting in a dark closet, wet tears running down my face. Sacrifices. I don’t actually ask for much. I don’t do much for myself. I hardly do anything for myself. Travel is my selfish habit. 

I’m not capable of saying no to the burdens or the needs or the asks of everyone and everything when I’m home. When I’m home, I’m surrounded by responsibilities. I can’t sit alone for a moment. One of the animals is always on me or needing me. A corner always needs cleaning. A client needs something. My laptop is sitting and whispering that I should be working right now. 

When I’m not home, I don’t have the option of fulfilling all these heavy burdens. I’m instead forced to explore and to see and to breathe life into myself. I like that a plane ride is far enough away from my needs and I have traveled so far and wide that I now must indulge in the time there. 

All year I’ve been looking forward to July. The year was filled with endless work and obligations. At first, we looked at April and had time to go somewhere. Then Shay’s tooth became an issue and five thousand dollars later, we didn’t travel. But I planned Guatemala. I’ve never even wanted to go to Guatemala. I wanted to go to Europe. If I were alone, I’d take a long twelve hour plane ride to Europe and I’d go to Austria or Paris or the Cotswolds. Tuscany or Rome. Somewhere new. Somewhere that forces me to have a purpose. Shay wanted to go to Guatemala. He loves Latin America, he can’t do long plane rides, he knows Spanish. So we planned Guatemala, and by we, of course I mean me. I planned Guatemala. I found the best hotels that had a gym for him, I planned the flights, the activities he may like to do, I planned and then I waited. I worked and smiled and every day of June and April and May and February and March, I worked and I put a smile on my face for everyone and everything that needed me. And then June was too much for Shay. And he had his breaking point. I’d agreed to too much. I’d taken on too much work for us. I’d somehow taken care of us in a wrong way, again. 

And we’ve been in limbo. Two separate beings feeling like the other isn’t sacrificing enough. And I’ve been holding out, I’ve been waiting and putting our relationship on the back burner. Because we had Guatemala. And he needs time. And he needs routine. And he needs to not travel. And I could go alone. But I can’t go alone. Because the entire time I’d go alone, I’d wish I wasn’t alone. I’d wish I wasn’t by myself in a place that I didn’t want to go to. I’d cry and be scared and squint my eyes because I wouldn’t want to see the world without him. 

And today I canceled Guatemala. And I feel absolutely broken. I feel numb and lifeless and limbless and unimportant and dumb. I feel pathetic. I feel like everything I worked for all these months are just piles and piles of worry and pain that are sitting on my chest and I feel like I’m ready to collapse. Moose is sitting on my lap in my dark closet, scared and worried because I’m wet with tears again. And she needs me so I’ll let her. And then next month. And every day I’ll be here. In my box. In my hole. Working and pleasing and doing what everyone needs. And I will sacrifice and I will surrender and I will never have anything for myself. 

I will sit with the anxiety. I will somehow convince myself to beg for another trip. For another solace. For something to look forward to so that I don’t just off myself instead. And it won’t come. Because it hasn’t. Because he says he doesn’t trust me. But I don’t trust you too. I don’t trust that anyone will choose me or my needs or anything for me because I know I won’t be choosing it too. 

And I can write this. I can think this all. I can feel it and I can tell it to people and they will listen. But no one cares. No one actually wants anything to change because if anything changed they’d have to somehow lose. And no one wants to be a loser. So I’ll be the loser again. I’ll keep losing. And soon maybe I’ll have a child and that child will take from me too. And maybe one day the skin from my bones won’t be enough and maybe they’ll just rip me apart. And once everyone has a piece of my flesh and my dry useless body is used up, they’ll move on and no one will ever even think about Stefanie. And then maybe I’ll feel some sense of rest. Maybe then I’ll have some sense of peace and maybe if I’ve absolutely given every ounce of my being and I’m truly out of things to give, I’ll be just me. 

Wet.