A Missing Woman
When an average life isn't enough.
This piece is a bit shorter than usual because I'm busy moulding my novel's first draft into an enticing package - all 120,000 words of it. This is more than I initially anticipated, but sometimes a protagonist just doesn't want their story to end.
I’d had enough. Tony was being an interfering sod most of the time and Darius was turning into a wastrel who didn’t deserve all the love and attention I selflessly foisted upon him. What was the point of slaving away at work for all those hours just to support the indolent pair? Maybe I was partly to blame for turning them into what they now were. I hadn’t earnestly desired a family, if I was being honest. It was an implicit expectation set by my friends, my Dad and brother. Nothing wrong with that, I’d thought, along with millions of other women in my situation.
But my desires and capabilities were greater than being a mother and wife. You only have one life, one chance to live it to the full. Time was slipping away. Each year gone by was one less to explore my boundaries and the world around me, my biological clock all the while going tick-tock.
I spent my commute to work daydreaming about what might have been, then rekindling lost or distant friendships via my phone, guiltily secreted under my desk.
Tony and I had spoken before: “But, darling,” he’d said, “I don’t see the difference between you being the main breadwinner and me a house-husband. At least not compared to the reverse situation that’s been the status quo for centuries. Aren’t I supporting what you want to achieve by not being a stereotypically chauvinist man?”
Tony was full of clever words, but it was an old argument and he was mostly ignorant about what my true aims in life were. Perhaps that was my fault for not communicating them. But he’d got my back up yet again, my feminist hackles raised, tail bristling.
“The difference is that women have uteruses, Tony,” I had retorted. “Who do you think does most of the cleaning and childcare, as well as juggling everything else around the house?”
Tony looked at me blankly, even puppy-like. Maybe I wasn’t being fair. I loved him dearly, but it just wasn’t working between us.
I’d spoken to my best friend Claire about my frustrations. But she didn’t understand them, let alone share them. She told me how lucky I was to have everything a person might want – a good job, financial security, a devoted husband. Then she’d twittered on about “stuff” – a wonderful house, furniture from John Lewis, the BMW parked outside. But I didn’t care about that. After all, it was “only” money - but still my hard-earned money - for maintaining the façade of a successfully functioning household. But all those pounds and pence merely acted as a lubricant for acquiring things, only to reach yet another tier of avarice. I hated that damned ladder, every slippery rung of it.
So I craved to be free, to help people that needed and deserved my attentions. Not making bloody widgets and bringing up a recalcitrant teenager. Yes, accusations of selfishness might be valid; of not just accepting the roles that burdened so many other women. But weren’t Tony and Darius only behaving in the same way as I wished to, with my giving them the unconditional opportunity to do what they wanted? Why couldn’t it work both ways? Damn them all.
So, how to do it? Explain, argue, then give in yet again, to repeat the same old cycle of self-pitying woe? Or just go. Pack a few things and leave, tip-toeing from an emptier, colder nest? I had wrestled with my conscience for so long, dragging out each passing day with worry and indecision, dreading the next.
Alright, time to get a grip of yourself, Natasha. Make a plan to cut loose life’s baggage. Dealing with that idiot of a boss at the factory would be a good start to plotting your escape.
I could only agree with myself.