prompts for april 2026

How has failure ever protected you from a path that wasn’t yours? (Thank you for the prompt Rojie!)

Far be it from me to sing the praises of marriages ending or vows not being taken seriously but when I was thinking of an answer to this prompt, undoing my marriage was the obvious answer.

My marriage failed.

I got married at age twenty-four on July 1 (Canada Day) in 2000. We had known each other a whole eight months and on the day we got engaged, had never even cohabited together. In fact, up until then, we’d lived nearly a thousand kilometres away from each other.

Of course none of that mattered to either of us at the time. We were in love (maybe), and both in a rush to get married and start a family. And the facts were the facts, he had a good job, I was just finishing college and about to start a career as a nurse, he was easy-going and treated me well, we had fun together.

What else do you need?

Well the answer is, lots. You need so much more than that. It’s just not that simple. Not for me anyway. I could never settle. So I didn’t settle.

I quit. I left. I got tired of playing second fiddle to a case of beer. Early on in the marriage the fights over it made me cry, broke my heart and disappointed me to a point where I fell over the edge of the cliff.

I quit caring about him or the marriage. I quit trying. I quit crying. Eventually realized I’d made a huge mistake.

That was fourteen years ago.

I no longer feel guilty about my failed marriage. It should have never happened, I made a mistake, he made millions of mistakes and so what.

I was never truly myself in so many ways when I was married. I was young and foolish and always trying to impress someone, or live my life in ways that aligned with others’ likes or dislikes, instead of my own.

And furthermore, I feel like I wouldn’t have many of the things in my life that I have now, if I had stayed.

Not sure that I would have ever picked up writing again. Probably wouldn’t have Sid as I could never convince my ex-husband to sign up to be a foster parent. Definitely wouldn’t have Baby RR. And my home would never be adorned with the maximalist style it has today.

Oh and of course, there’s Clint. He’s absolutely no fun, I call him Mr. Safety in fact. He’s annoyingly by the book and predictable. He’ll never travel with me, refuses to fly. But he’s also never ever drunk or high and I know I can count on him. He’s an amazing partner to parent alongside, a great Daddy to Sid and Papa to Baby RR.