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you seem so miserable.

i've always felt like a burden to you.
the problem child. 
the first one to go through everything, 
the guinea pig,
the draft.
i didn't ask to be born.
you're the one who signed up to be a mother.
you made that decision.

you tell me i'm not what i think i am but i know everything i do and everything we do gives you stress and puts pressure on you and makes you unhealthy like always.
does the joy truly outweigh the sorrow?

and you tell me about marriage, that the things which enamor me so much are the things that will grate on my nerves the most when i choose someone to spend the rest of my life with.
you point out
the things he does 
that annoy you

and i see myself in you
and i am afraid.

the reasons why i swore away marriage flood back to me--cheaters, abusers, gone.
bad husbands, no husbands.
divorce. death.
pain.

the reasons why i swore away children flood back to me--loneliness, abuse, struggle.
why would i want to raise a child in my own house?
where i might turn out wrong?
when i myself as a child am so often so done with life?
why would i bring a child into this world of pain and suffering?

old fears. the crippling anxiety about huge choices. but it is real.

you seem so miserable.
happy, but when you open up you are miserable. 
human.
do i want to be human?

you ask me, "are you always like this? is this always what goes on in your head? you always remember the smallest things i say, you analyze everything you hear?"

yes.

--10.23.18