The Moment Your Life Crashes and Burns: On Divorce, Injury, and Questions Without Answers
It’s been more than four years since my husband announced he was in love with my friend and no longer wanted to be married to me.
My convalescence afforded me time to think. I found myself asking the kinds of questions that don’t have real answers, like “why me?” and “how did this happen?” and, most commonly, “what if?”
It has long been my instinct to seek alternatives, to wonder whether there were other paths I could have taken, decisions I could have made to avoid misfortune. My brain likes to imagine a scenario in which I have complete control, operating under the illusion that I have the power to affect my destiny rather than accepting the reality that sometimes bad things happen for no reason at all.
Sliding Doors
Sliding Doors
Lady BirdWonder Woman,
Sliding Doors
real
Jill Gallagher is an editor and writer in Boston. Her essays have appeared in BuzzFeed, Vol 1 Brooklyn, Greatist, and the Ploughshares blog. She writes a tinyletter about dating (and not) called Early & Alone.
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