Cortez, Colorado - You think she won’t leave. But she will.

At first, even she won’t realize where she’s headed –because she is not actively thinking of leaving. It’s just a low rumbling in her soul…one you should be able to hear because she is constantly listening to yours. This rumbling, this stirring of your soul…it is how she knows you won’t leave. Because staying is so easy for you.

Soon, she is joking with her girlfriends over wine. She laughs and says she thinks about running away far too often for a woman in her mid-forties. Her friends’ laughter echoes her own. But when her laughter fades, she smiles sadly into her wine glass, and her eyes get wistful…for a place she longs to be, with someone, anyone, who might love her – just a little bit more – than she is loved now.

And then, she starts to mentally count her savings, to count the years before her children are independent, to count how many years she has left. Years where she is still considered vibrant, where she is still considered beautiful, and yes, where she is still considered sexual.

And she starts to mentally pack her bags.

She wonders. She wonders how many other women her age dream of leaving. Dream of a life where she is not a waitress, a house keeper, an administrative assistant, because let us be honest here…she is definitely not the administrator.

She has been reminded often enough.

She wonders how many other women are tired. So tired of doing it all, and so tired of how doing it all is just expected…and never appreciated. Except for when, for whatever reason, it does not get done. And then it is noticed – but still not appreciated.

Never appreciated.

She thinks. She thinks about all the women, who like her, work full time. Who are financially independent. Who have been running the lives of so many people for so many years, yet are still criticized, disrespected, devalued, and hurting. Because none of this sounds like love.

So she begins to consider. She considers leaving. Except it is no longer a low rumbling in her soul, but a screaming, suffocating explosion that scares her. Because of what she longs to do if she cannot escape. Of what she might do. Of what she has already done. Of who she is becoming. If she does not leave.

You think she won’t leave. But she will. One way or another, she will. Because she already has. ~ Vanessa Jane