I feel trapped. 6/25/2026
I don't know what my problem is, but for my whole life, it's been like if someone says something to me about me, some part of myself believes them and then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy where I don't try at all because now I'm convinced I can't do it.
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When I was little, everyone told me that because I loved to argue so much, I should be a lawyer. My dad would travel a lot for work, and he started bringing me back little kids' shirts from Harvard. So I got it in my head that I was gonna go to Harvard Law School.
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Then 5th grade happened. I was taken out of the school I'd been going to since pre-k because the principal was racist and said some anti-Latino comments to my parents. They put me in a public elementary school with 40 kids in the class, who had all grown up together. I sat in the back. At the time, my parents didn't know I had trouble with hearing, attention, or sight. I fell way behind because I could neither hear nor see what was happening at the front of the classroom where the teacher was.
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I remember doing a presentation where the teacher asked us to talk about what we wanted to be when we grew up. I said lawyer and mentioned Harvard. One of the kids in the honours classes said I was too stupid to get in.
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I argued, the whole class piled on, and then I stopped dreaming of Harvard.
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That is one example to give you an idea of how it happens. When I was in middle school, I got this idea that I would travel the world as a wanderer. I loved the idea of living out of a camper or backpacking across Europe. This was a decade before we saw social media and #VanLife kicking off.
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In high school, a boyfriend told me I probably won't get into college so I should stop going to school and just ditch to go to his house and have sex with him. So I did that. My grades slipped. I barely graduated. I had to graduate in summer school, months after the rest of my classmates.
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I went to cooking school because I was convinced that I was too stupid for anything else. My classmates cemented that whole "I'm too stupid" idea. I developed an eating disorder and had to be hospitalized. I nearly flunked out, but I was able to appeal it by writing this 7-page letter of appeal. I don't remember most of what I wrote, but I do remember this one line: "when people pretend you don't exist for long enough, you start to believe them, you start to disappear, you start to want to disappear."
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Still, I was allowed to stay. I came back with a force. I joined a club where we started our school's newspaper. I ran a column every month where I picked an herb, talked about its health benefits, its flavour profile, places to find it, any historic value it had, and then gave a recipe centered on it. I had this idea that I would open a restaurant someday that would have a menu based on emotions. If you were feeling tired, stressed, sad, listless — pick from that feeling's menu portion, and the herbs and ingredients in the dish would help.
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Toward the end of my time at that school, I had a class with a French Master Chef. A Master Chef, for those who don't know, is a very prestigious title. Anyone with a kitchen and a coat can call themselves a chef, technically, but a Master Chef has been tested multiple times. They are owed respect, usually.
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This one had a habit of picking one person per class to make into a scapegoat to keep the rest of the students in line. One student was guaranteed to fail purely because that was how he kept everyone else in line. I knew the rumour long before I walked into his kitchen. Then he picked me, and I finally understood the "crying in the walk-in" stereotype. He made a point of publicly and cruelly calling me out in front of everyone and berating me until he was blue in the face. And he told me that I had better find an externship with someone I knew because no one in their right mind would hire me, that I was too stupid to be in a kitchen, that I should just quit and go work retail.
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And for years, I was too afraid to apply at a commercial restaurant for a kitchen role.
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Then I followed a boy out of the state to Nevada where I couldn't find work and this boy kept trying to compete with me on who was the better cook. And the funny thing is that he always got better grades than me, but whenever we did a little side-by-side cook-off with our friends, they would always say my food tasted better. He HATED that. He had the practical techniques down, but I had raw talent for flavours. I'm convinced my food was better because I cooked with passion, whereas he cooked to beat me. It was bland and dry every time. Still he cemented in me that I lacked the skill to work in a commercial kitchen.
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Eventually, I moved to Miami following a horrifically abusive marriage. There was a lot of start-and-go. I eventually found my stride and was able to work in kitchens, but first I spent years waiting tables just to familiarize myself with menus and the kitchen staff, to get my foot in the door.
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Every time I saved up a little, I started dreaming of traveling. Just packing a small bag, selling the rest, and going. Every time I almost did, someone held me back. My dad (who was paying for my car at the time) said he would report it stolen if I drove farther north than Fort Lauderdale. My mom insisted I would end up dead somewhere if I tried. My sister told me I was stupid for wanting to leave.
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So I stayed.
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Eventually, I met and married a man who was kind to me. Our love was never passionate. We stopped having sex a month into the relationship, and we've been together 11 years now, married for 9. For most of that, he's been my best friend but only a friend. We both understood what this was when it started. We were both tired of looking for someone to sit still long enough for us to love them. And by the time I met him, I had already been told and convinced that something in me is inherently unlovable, to the point that I literally have it tattooed on me.
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And now? God, I am so bored with this life. I wanted kids, but he won't give me them even though he knew it was a deal breaker for me when we started dating. He wants me at home taking care of the house and our dogs, but I'm allowed to get a part-time job for fun as long as it doesn't mess with his work hours or leave the dogs alone for too long.
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Part of me has let society can convince me that at 37, my life is over. This is what it is. This is all it will ever be.
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But there another part in me that is begging to be let free. I keep thinking about this aunt that I have who moved to Spain in her late 50s, met her soul mate, and has built a home for herself literally by hand. Everyone thought she was nuts, but she's out there right now in her 60s and thriving.
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I've always been the black sheep of my family. What if the retirement in a nice house with a kind-but-bland husband isn't the life for me? What if I'm like my aunt and my life is out somewhere else waiting for me?
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But I'm terrified of making that leap. I haven't worked in years being this miserable house wife. I would need to support myself for at least a year for the divorce to go through, I would need to sell our house which needs so many repairs. I would be starting from rock bottom with next to nothing and almost 40. What if I'm not like my aunt and there's just nothing for me out there but homelessness and being labeled the fuck-up in my family?
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Part of me is screaming that I have to try and the other part is saying "Well this life is livable and we have books to pretend with."
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God, I am just so sick of living my life based on the expectations of people around me.
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Yet at the same time, I don't want to be so far from my family that if something happened, I wouldn't know until days later, on the other side of the world.
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And I can't stand the idea of hurting my husband. He's not a bad person at all. But I don't think we're right for each other, and every day that passes, I feel like we're both hurting each other by staying together and ignoring this giant, radioactive elephant in the room.
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I don't know what to do or how to do it. And I just feel so stuck.