The walls were white, interrupted by exposed old wooden beams. The room had only one chair, which I offered to Vaiora. I sat opposite her on the edge of the double bed, the white linen taut and freshly laundered. And self-loathing. Not knowing the outcome. Self-rejection, mostly. It programs you for failure, hopelessness.
It feels… unattainable. For me, the words just below happiness and unhappiness—joy, sorrow, sadness—make more sense. I can understand joy or sadness, but happiness? Happiness is deeper. Those are joy, not absolute happiness. Absolute unhappiness, though—that, I understand. For me, it takes exhaustion to feel alive. Physical needs. Without the world—houses, cars, people, nature—how could we feel alive?
Absolute unhappiness. It could impact my physical state—manifesting as pain—or provoke emotional reactions, but inside, there was nothing. Just emptiness, and no way out of it. And I had no choice but to get up. I felt ashamed—unbearably so. Even when I was standing, I felt nailed to the baseboard. But the emptiness remained. On the day of my first chemotherapy, he blocked me completely. That, to me, was the ultimate betrayal. It happened for a reason, and, strangely, it taught me something.
Perhaps it served him in some way too. I drove myself mad—stooping to cruelty, manipulation, anger, endless despair, and constant aggression toward others. I manipulated people in the most terrible ways. I reached a point where I felt a total jerk. At first, I even admired it—this descent into depravity, this scum. But eventually, I stopped caring. And I kept going, repeating the same destructive actions.
Sometimes there were fewer, sometimes more, but the state of mind—the emptiness—remained the same. Life matters to me. Surviving cancer was easier than surviving him.
