My parents urged me to be patient when I confessed I didnt love Sarah, insisting I wait. And where did that waiting lead me?
Marrying Sarah was a waking nightmare. She was demanding, loudbut my father had chosen her for me. Hed spotted his old friends daughter and decided we were perfect for each other. With no other prospects and already thirty, I had no choice but to marry. Sarah ruled our marriage with an iron willeverything had to align with her plans, her desires. On her schedule, we had our first child, then the second.
Life trudged on through hardship and disappointment. The bad moments piled up, twisting existence into a living hell. I despised my wife, resented my children, and fought bitterly with her father. Divorce seemed the only escape.
My mother stood by me, but both she and my father told me to wait, to endure. As if they knew something, having lived so long, certain Id understand with time.
Now the children are grown and gone. Sarah and I remainworn into each other like old leather, accustomed, settled. I cant imagine life without her. Money is steady, finally. Weve found a quiet happiness, the kind that makes life feel like a fairy tale. Both healthy, content, in love, free of worry. Everything is as it should be. For years now, theres been nothing left to complain about.
It took us so long to reach this point. But I wonderdo people truly feel happiness while drowning in work, children, all the chaos of life? Or does it come only in old age, like mine, when theres nowhere left to runand no reason to?
