I want to tell you that last night, my toddler son woke out of a nightmare, screaming. He was sleeping on my floor. I yelled his name and brought him to my chest, and his heart was pounding so hard it was inside of me. I want to tell you that after he was born, I thanked God for the miscarriage before him, because without it, this son would never have existed, and I don’t hate myself for that. I want to tell you that I exist because my mother exists, and my mother exists because the baby before her died, and my grandmother exists despite the fact that her mother had five strokes before she had her babies.
You should know that I snore terribly, I get tonsil stones that make my breath reek of rotting bones, I don’t read nearly as much as you think I do, and I spend too much money at restaurants.
I want you to know that I don’t think about you often, but still too much.
When I am around that one friend’s husband, the one who hates fat people, I eat like a pig just to make him uncomfortable. More mashed potatoes, please. I would quit my job if I could make a living off of my chickens and my garden, but Lord knows I don’t work hard enough to ever make that happen.
My anxiety is under control, except that sometimes I daydream about a different life, except that I am happy, except that I am full of regret, except that I have won life’s jackpot, except that everything is unfair, except that I deserve every shitty thing, except that when I think about you, I am not actually thinking about you at all, but rather a whole lifetime of what ifs and if onlys and if I had knowns.
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Liz Boltz Ranfeld is a Hoosier writer and English professor whose work has been published by Relief Journal, Jezebel, Everyday Feminism, the Shriver Report, Christ and Pop Culture, and many other print and online publications.