She spends reams of paper wistfully mourning her youth. She is dissatisfied and restless, and she speaks in that bone-tired way of women who feel they have sacrificed too much. Her words will tell you that while her love has often been wasted, and her spirit has been crushed in a thousand ways, she is proud of herself for sticking it out. Love is a tyrant, and demanding, but there’s something to be said for a well-polished floor, full cupboards, and planned vacations. It doesn’t hurt, not really. It’s just that there’s just something scraping and vulnerable under the surface — some elusive piece of herself that only comes out randomly, perhaps sparked by a certain pattern of clouds or a gray winter day.
There’s dinner to be made, and kids to shuffle to appointments, and a husband that’s more lukewarm than affectionate, but love is not always kind or pleasant. It is a tyrant, and demanding; it gives back when it wants to, and takes from wherever it can. It’s noble, really, to be a servant to some ideal that can never quite be reached. There’s a sideways kind of beauty in never quite measuring up, for sacrificing at the ancient altar of marriage, and those days of quiet reproach that feel like poetry or some other wild, remembered thing.
There’s dust on the figurines in the curio cabinet, and someone left the twist tie off a loaf of bread. These things feel like an insult to her. They feel big, like a message or something else in the making. Nothing is ever simple, or as it seems. Even seemingly inconsequential things must be be taken apart and examined, perhaps to be turned into poetry that no one will ever read. Dust turns into years spent chasing after something that was always there. A forgotten tie reminds her of what has turned hard and stale. Everywhere she turns there are metaphors that speak to her of futility and negligence. She mourns her youth because it is the last time she ever felt like she wasn’t chasing after perfection.
At night, she runs her fingers across his chest and thinks of everything else she should be doing. Love is a tyrant, and demanding of both her time and her affection. It sets her on edge, and stirs up a potent mix of bitter tenderness and happy-enough regrets. She feels proud of the exterior life she has created. She is caged but comfortable. There’s never a day when there’s not enough, only years that have left her longing to be seventeen again.
She asks me to tell her stories, but the happy ones leave her tight-lipped and silent, while the sad ones cause her to measure her life against mine, and rearrange experiences until she comes out triumphant.
I was the good girl, not you. I did everything the right way, the way they are supposed to be done. I’m smarter than you, I’m a better writer, I’m prettier, I’m more talented. I have a home and a husband. I’m stable, I’m normal. Who do you think you are? You don’t deserve this. I hope it all falls apart for you. I hope you fail.
She picks up a silver spoon and stirs her tea. The metal pounds against the cup, and her eyes narrow with trapped resentments, but she wishes me well and tells me that she loves me.
Her love, though, is a tyrant, and demanding. It seeks to inflict harm if only to be able to say “see, I told you so,” before extending its arms for a cold embrace. It wishes for penance and revenge, and expects misery. It stands in the wings, waiting for me to stumble, and silently cheers my mistakes.
There are dark times on this journey, and days when I’m sure she is right. There are times I panic, and lose my place, and feel every failure I’ve ever had deeply. There are times I torture myself with doubt and count my losses, particularly of people, until I feel like a leper. Then I screw up my courage and do some rearranging of my own.
The rain is pounding against the motel window. It is 3:20 in the morning and the loud party that’s going on upstairs is only getting louder. I am hungry and exhausted, and trying to sleep, but her love weighs on me like lead. I take a shower and pack my bags. The waitress at Denny’s tells me I look like I either had a really good night or a really bad one. Love shouldn’t be a tyrant, I tell her, and besides, I’m escaping from all of that. She nods and pours me a cup of coffee.
Meet Lucy. She's a 2010 
{ 33 comments… read them below or add one }
New post – A Bitter Kind of Love & Breakfast at Denny’s http://www.findingmyamerica.com/?p=576
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Beautiful writing that always makes me think RT @janedevin: New post – A Bitter Kind of Love & Breakfast at Denny’s http://bit.ly/9Z1bpA
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The way things are supposed to be done keeps me up at night ALL THE TIME. Thank you for a beautiful story.
Voix´s last blog ..Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride
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Jane,
Thanks.
Ann
You speak the truth so eloquently and introspectively. So happy I am found you so I can experience it. I received a phone call from a friend today who overreacts to the seemingly smallest things. She things something is her fault and beats herself up over it. I don’t understand her reaction, and yet I do. So easy to compare ourselves to others instead of looking upon the positivities of our life.
Screwed Up Texan´s last blog ..Texas Pride and Pronunciation
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Tragic person, this friend…Perfection is in the eye of the beholder. You are perfection.
The judgment, resentment and cruelty in the italicized paragraph sent a chill through me. That is the kind of love I’ve learned to keep at a distance. I hope you have too, Jane.
Kim Nelson´s last blog ..I Dreamed of You
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Every ounce of bitter love is a counter-balance to the sweet love we learn to have for ourselves and accept from others. I’m still learning to keep those neither encouraging nor nurturing cold embraces at arms length. I realize bitter love is given from brokeness and perhaps all they have to give. Sometimes I choose to walk the emotional tightrope of sadness and sorrow versus live and let live very carefully. Consciously trying not to inhale the venom that has infused the wounded spirit perchance to wound mine further.
Lord knows I have enough of my own issues to transcend without taking on anyone else’s. Like everything else, there are choices and consequences defining and illuminating our individual path. Sometimes “something is better than nothing” is not enough sustenance for the journey. Sadly I’ve realized there’s a fork in the road and a choice to be made. I wish her well on her journey and hope our paths cross at some other time at a better place.
There is no formulaic path for any of us, we each are finding our own way and hopefully encouraging others to find theirs. In so doing, we may even get glimmers of trailmarkers and inspiration for our own path.
Thanks Jane for the reminder sometimes the wounding is not totally about me
A Bitter Kind of Love & Breakfast at Denny’s http://www.findingmyamerica.com/?p=576
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Reading: RT @janedevin: A Bitter Kind of Love & Breakfast at Denny’s http://www.findingmyamerica.com/?p=576
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Reading @janedevin ’s – A Bitter Kind of Love & Breakfast at Denny’s http://www.findingmyamerica.com/?p=576
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Isn’t it in the comparing that misery is found. Trying to define what should and could be…based on our own rules….or a need to try to control theirs.
I do so appreciate you Jane, and am realizing that we are in Atlanta at the same time Thursday and Friday….I hope we can find time to meet…
hugs
Sweetie
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Wonderfully written and I’m so thankful to have a sweetie neither lukewarm NOR a tyrant. Am also so thankful that I am looking forward to years alone with him; just us two.
Pop and Ice´s last blog ..You’re Hired!
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Proving I can still write a story on a PC – http://www.findingmyamerica.com/?p=576
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And by the way, your relatives are mean (if I think I know who you’re referring to). I keep my distance from poisonous relatives.
Pop and Ice´s last blog ..You’re Hired!
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Friend can’t be happy for you or theirself? Read @janedevin ’s “A Bitter Kind of Love…” – http://www.findingmyamerica.com/?p=576
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There are individuals in this world who through their own pain, anger, and feelings of inadequacy reach out and grab us at our most vulnerable places trying to pull us into the deep with them. Those people I like to stay out of arms reach of. That’s the only way I can live my best life.
Julia Janzen´s last blog ..Learning about Waldorf
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Beautifully done Jane!
I know that tyrannical love all too well, I have learned not to love that way from the person who should have taught me the very basics, the very roots of the purest form of love there is.
Thank you for this piece.
*hugs*
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Our life is a reflection of our choices and we each need to take responsibility for our own choices. Jane, you are a mirror, whether it’s comfortable or not for the person who is gazing into that mirror. You are taking responsibility for your choices, for your life. Bravo. No one promised us life would be easy. Even when your road is challenging, you continue forging ahead. I think that’s a wise choice. Thanks for your ongoing inspiration.
A Bitter Kind of Love & Breakfast at Denny’s http://is.gd/aKOif
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A Bitter Kind of Love & Breakfast at Denny’s http://is.gd/aKOif /via @janedevin powerful, Jane.
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I really hope those italics are what you saw in her eyes, and not what she actually said.
Life is so full of ambiguity. All the choices we make–even ones we are proud of and somewhat sure of–are the glitter on a rock hard stone of “could have beens”
Ann’s Rants´s last blog ..Erma Bombeck Writing Contest: My Erma Bomb
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Powerful read – seems we all know someone like this: RT @janedevin A Bitter Kind of Love & Breakfast at Denny’s http://is.gd/aKOif
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New post – http://www.findingmyamerica.com/?p=576
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Amazing.
The personal feel of this story makes me want to wrap it up in a blanket and comfort it, story and narrator, I suppose. I’m grateful to you for writing these amazing bits and sharing them here.
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See what @janedevin finds in her latest adventure – http://www.findingmyamerica.com/?p=576
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I knew something was missing from my life. I hadn’t checked your blog in a couple of weeks.
“I would urge the idealists left in this world to stand up. Be brave and bold in your goodness, and step away from those who would challenge it for the sake of sport. Defend whatever innocence you have left, and value the innocence of others. Put no shelter in your heart for those who would not respect your spirit.
Be brave, and rid yourself of the cliches, creeds, and habits that create excuses for the cruel acts of others and challenge you to take them as your due. You were not born to be either a victim or a perpetrator, but to reach your highest potential, and to share the best that is within you with the rest of the world.”
Jane, I took this from your Cruelty Is Not An Art, that you wrote back in 07. I give it to people who think they have to take out everything friends and family dish out to them. I know you visited, to give it a chance , as you would, but I also know if it hasn’t changed you will let it be. I have learned so much from your words. Thank you so much for being out there for us all.
You have an amazing and unique brand of courage, Jane. This was incredibly moving. While you write about the bitterness and dissatisfaction that fills this other person, somehow I think I am also reading how important it was for you to try and elicit some sort of approval, or at least a token happiness for you from her, but knew from the outset it was impossible. And perilous to your emotional self. And as you knew it would, the encounter left you disappointed. (Or maybe this is garbage, just me, interpreting via my own agenda, my own experiences.) Regardless, there’s a power we give other people, especially those we *think* we should be able to trust, that allows them to take out their own frustrations and leave us bereft. I know you’ve discovered so much about yourself, and are able to bounce back on your own accord (with effort). Brava! Encounters like this will never be easy and there will always be a price, but stay strong. You have supporters out here, both virtual and those you have met, who are genuinely thrilled for you and your success, your experiences and adventures. Damn, girl, you LIVE.
Thank you Jane. As always thoroughly enjoyed.
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Ah, early Sunday morning, and I am finally able to catch up on reading what Jane has had to say in the last while. Wow, this last piece took me back quite a number of years ago to the time when my sis and I were having some major issues. We had nothing to do with each other for about four years, which was rather comfortable for me, until she went through some serious health problems, then we were finally able to resolve and work through many of the former issues like jealousy, and being judgemental of the way we lived our lives, I say “we”, because I was not totally innocent in my behaviour either, but today, thank the lord, we are the best of friends and actually enjoy our times together. I still find the change amazing. But at the time I believe it was for the best for both of us to spend time apart.
The italics part of your writing reminded me soooo much of the verbal and nonverbal messages I would receive from my sis during those years.(And from her hubby as well). So glad its behind me now.
The way you are able to write about and to describe life issues continues to amaze me, Jane.
Hope everything is going well for you on your journey. Enjoy the Easter Season!
Wow, I can’t get enough of your beautiful writing!