I’m sad. Well, angry really, but I don’t know what to do with that and so it turns inward, and having yourself angry at you is the saddest thing.
I have good reasons to be angry. I didn’t sign up for this, any of it. I’m working with multiple handicaps, any one of which would be enough to enrage. But there is no use being angry at the other people; they meant no harm. Most of them are hurting more than I am anyway. So I am angry at myself for not knowing better. For not standing up for myself sooner, and for standing up for myself, selfishly failing to put everyone else’s wishes and desires before mine. For going along with decisions I wasn’t comfortable with. For making my own decisions. 

I’m really not winning here. 

And so I’m sitting here on a perfect afternoon, at the perfect home, watching the perfect family, and they aren’t mine. I don’t mean perfect as in flawless, but as in just right. And it hurts because while I’m not far enough gone to really believe I can never have this, I know it will never be easy. 

Maybe it’s an illusion. Maybe it’s this hard for everyone and I just can’t see it. But my children don’t have a father, and I can’t put a roof over their heads, and I get lost navigating all the unfamiliar systems that make up a society I wasn’t raised in, and I’m tired, so tired, all the time. And so I’m sitting here at some other kid’s birthday party and I’m choking back hot pinpricks and blinking down the lump in my throat. 

Because I can’t be angry, and so I’m sad.