Her Last Journal

Day 1 of 365

Dear Diary,

Last night I had a very unproductive discussion with Julian I realize he doesn’t understand me and how I feel at all and we are more different than I ever thought we were. I just had this belief that I was waiting all this time and then our life would start and we would be enjoying each other’s company and travel and see other places around the country at least. But instead a year after he has retired we live in the same house and and even less stimulating life than before the retirement. The worst thing is that there doesn’t seem to be any desire from Julian to make any change in that fact. The whole experience left me feeling very hopeless about our future. How we see things is on two different ends of the spectrum and that’s not comforting when you have invested 30 years in a relationship.

So this morning I had an epiphany. I would give myself 365 days to live as full a life as I was capable of with the opportunities I have been afforded. I would see places I haven’t seen. Experience the life I have never had the time to live because I was busy being a mom to our children or busy being a good wife to Julian or even being a good daughter and sister to my family. I will live for Leena! After a year of this I would leave my life. I would leave each of my kids’ a letter to explain how short our youth is and how we have to try not to let the routine of everyday life not bog us down so much we never allow ourselves to experience adventures. I would try to walk away, so to speak, from Julian and from this life and end mine on that high. The high of 1 year of living for me.

It’s not like I have it all figured out or anything. I just couldn’t continue to be this unhappy anymore. I know my parents didn’t look at me when I was born and say, “This one looks like a Lisa. She will live an unhappy life taking care of everyone else except herself and die never had experienced anything adventurous.” I mean who does that? I know my mama looked at me and saw a new chance for someone she loved. I was a chance. And so I am taking a chance for the next 365 days on me.