What?! Starting again?

 I’m Beryl. I’m in bits. Floods and floods of tears. I’m worse than a leaky tap, my bottom lip quivers and that’s it, it comes whooshing out. A simple word triggers me good style and sets me right off. Total head is blown. I’m bereft. Suffering the biggest loss I’ve ever experienced. The world as I have known it is no more.

It started this time last year. I suspected my husband of an affair, to twist that knife right in she’s at least a decade younger than I am. I didn’t get it, he had his feet right under my table, and wanted for nothing. I did everything for him – washing, ironing, cooking, cleaning, shopping, banking. He’d roll in from his after work two-pints, gulp down his hearty tea, have his shower, shit & shave, and camp in front of the box most nights. Did I complain? No. I carried on and still pandered to his every need. How the hell did he get the energy or the time to have an affair that’s what I want to know. It’s not as if he was a sprightly thing, and would lounge about in his ripped undies, yawning like a slovenly sloth, snoring like a bear when he’d inevitably nod off.

Not that he had to make much effort for the affair though. She worked with him, well as far as I know still works with him. Anyway, I found out and confronted the bastard. After his crocodile tears dried and he’d pretended to be sorry for about half an hour, he moved out. Twenty two years of marriage down the swanny and I’ve no clue how to carry on. He’s all I’ve ever known; childhood sweetheart, up the duff as a late teen, two-up and two-down in the suburbs with a loft conversion. My life has gone kaput and I’m alone. I’m now faced with the dauting situation of starting from scratch, rebuilding what life I have left.

It's hard trying to talk to the kids. I’d never expect them to pick a side, despite the fact their dad is a lying, cheating scumbag. The pity in their eyes, they don’t know what to do or say so I change the subject to make it easier for them to cope. I sit there when I’m on my own and I weep like nobody’s business. I hanker after a life even though it wasn’t anything special, but it was my life. Everything is on pause and I’m terrified to press play because what sort of a story will play out now? It’s not going to be a fluffy rom com that’s for sure. A horror most probably.

I mean, even if I did pluck up the courage to get myself out there again, who’d even want me? I’ve piled on more than a few pounds over the years, become far too comfortable in my ever expanding skin. You know what, if anyone’s written an instruction manual guiding you through what the hell to do and how to move on, then I’m definitely all eyes and ears. Not even sure I’d want to be with someone else. Ha, hark at me, trying to get in there first before the inevitable rejection comes at me.