Kiki looks into her own choices

“It’s the hope that kills you.” — Marian Keyes

In more than twenty years of dating, I have never been chosen. Wanted, yes. Lusted over, definitely. Maybe even loved once. But never chosen.

There was always something else: an ex, a new distraction, alcohol, drugs, unfinished business. And I was left circling the edges, the almost, the maybe. Convenience. Set aside when something shinier appeared. Being picked up only when it suits someone else is a different kind of abandonment. A quiet repeated discarding. I was the charging port- the place someone plugged into when they needed to be seen, loved, or to escape the shittiest parts of their lives for that moment. Only to be disconnected when they felt restored. My significance to them only measured by my usefulness.

It has taken me a long time to understand why I kept staring at closed doors. It wasn’t confusion or blindness. Probably a little bit of stupidity but mostly a lot of hope. Hope that one day I would be seen too. Hope that this time I would be chosen.

But at this point I am tired of waiting for footsteps that never come.