I read a short fanfiction story a few years ago that sewed itself into my resolve. I was married and deeply unhappy and spent whatever waking hour I could not thinking about it. So I read.
This was a story of two people who fell in love. Who bake bread on Sundays and work on Mondays and kiss when they come home. The man says “I’ll get fat” with a muffin in his mouth and his lover looks him in the eyes and smiles, “Maybe. But you’ll be happy.”
I cried when I read that line. The story was mostly fluff but it pinpointed the dissonance in my life. My partner was more likely to say “good” when I told him I hadn’t eaten dinner. But you’ll be happy. The line rang in my head.
Love had become what I looked like. Love had become a bargain with my body that I had not fulfilled. I haven’t eaten dinner. Good.
I’m scratching at a scab here, but I found a passage I wrote about that one little fanfiction story that made me cry. I remember how, months later, I wrote to the author and said thank you. That their words mattered to me. She wrote back a beautiful note, honored that her story helped me make changes in my life.
It was one of many stones on the scale, but an important one.
But you’ll be happy.
Sometimes we need to be reminded of what’s important.
With Love,
Natalie