[b]Liane Moriarty
They say it’s good to let your grudges go, but I don’t know, I’m quite fond of my grudge. I tend it like a little pet.[/b]
And then one day it grows to become a monster.
But maybe every life looked wonderful if all you saw was the photo albums.
Trust me: You don’t want to see mine.
Every day I think, ‘Gosh, you look a bit tired today,’ and it’s just recently occurred to me that it’s not that I’m tired, it’s that this is the way I look now.
Looking tired being the least of it.
I mean a fat, ugly man can still be funny and lovable and successful, continued Jane. But it’s like it’s the most shameful thing for a woman to be.
But you weren’t, you’re not— began Madeline.
Yes, OK, but so what if I was! interrupted Jane. What if I was! That’s my point. What if I was a bit overweight and not especially pretty? Why is that so terrible? So disgusting? Why is that the end of the world?
It’s all in the genes, right, Satyr?
It’s because a woman’s entire self-worth rests on her looks, said Jane. That’s why. It’s because we live in a beauty-obsessed society where the most important thing a woman can do is make herself attractive to men.
Let’s ask Reece and Nicole.
It’s all about our egos. She felt she was on the edge of understanding something important. They could fall in love with fresh, new people, or they could have the courage and humility to tear off some essential layer of themselves and reveal to each other a whole new level of otherness, a level far beyond what sort of music they liked. It seemed to her everyone had too much self-protective pride to truly strip down to their souls in front of their long-term partners. It was easier to pretend there was nothing more to know, to fall into an easygoing companionship. It was almost embarrassing to be truly intimate with your spouse; how could you watch someone floss one minute, and the next minute share your deepest passion or most ridiculous, trite little fears? It was almost easier to talk about that sort of thing before you’d shared a bathroom and a bank account and argued over the packing of the dishwasher.
I’m trying to imagine now if I had only revealed my own…