Speaking of Unspeakable Misery. . .

Scrolling through a  newspaper archive  when I was stopped by a headline in a 1860’s edition: In Misery For Years.

Wha. . .? What could it mean? 

At first impression, I figured, Okay, it’s probably a middle-aged man who’d lived with a nagging wife for forty years. He just couldn’t take it any more, and decided to disappear. Men did that even way back then. But first, as a mean and parting gesture, he left a note in the local newspaper. 

The scoundrel. The scandal!

Or maybe a young woman had finally had enough of her badgering, controlling husband who managed her money and decided her social calendar–-who she saw and where she went. That could be miserable, especially if you had to ride a wagontrain over mountains just to sip hot tea and munch finger sandwiches on Monday and Thursday with people you don’t like! So she made a point to come out of her shell and tell everybody at once. That makes for tea-talk!

Perhaps it was an aging matron who’d never drawn a well breath in her life, and one day realized nobody even asked her any more, How are you feeling, Mable? I mean, who dared? People being people, Mable just needed to communicate her misery. She required understanding and empathy, right? Sick and tired can make you do something that makes others sick and tired.

Or worse, what if this was a act of last resort…a last statement after being pregnant and bare-footed year after year, constantly nauseous as six tots hung from her petticoat and followed her room to room all day long while the five uncontrollable teenage boys, whose help she tried to enlist, hung out under the street lamp at all hours of the night instead! Oh, I’d hate that. Talk about miserable.

There’s a strong possibility of bad luck that followed a man for many years. That happens. First he lost his job and had to depend on the good nature of his family, only to discover his Uncle Henry and Aunt Bert were home all along but didn’t answer the door when he came calling. Then his wife decided to go home to her mother and took the cat but left the kids. Whoa! How much misery can a man take?

What if a shy man loved a phoofey woman and he couldn’t tell her because he was so bashful. Or, he did tell her but she didn’t love him back. Maybe he was the gardener and pinned away over her tomatoes and zucchini and couldn’t get his weeding done because she was always tripping through the rose bushes and distracting him. Well, it could be– .

Do you have a special misery you’d like to tell the world? I think I’ll go back and finish reading  that article now.