In spite of what anyone says it’s women who make the rules.

She didn't know then that life has a way of backing you into a corner. You make your choices when you're far too young to understand their implications, and with each choice you make the field of possibility narrows. You choose a career and other careers are lost to you. You choose a mate and commit to loving no other.

Even if you forget that´s not the same as if it never happened. The slate is not entirely wiped clean; you can´t reclaim the person you were beforehand; your state of innocence is not there to be retrieved.

Acceptance is supposed to be a good thing - Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Also compromise, as every couples therapist will tell you. But the cost was high - the damping of expectation, the dwindling of spirit, the resignation that comes to replace enthusiasm, the cynicism that supplants hope. The mouldering that goes unnoticed and unchecked.

In spite of what anyone says it’s women who make the rules.

We live alone in our cluttered psyches, possessed by our entrenched beliefs, our fatuous desires, our endless contradictions - and like it or not we have to put up with this in one another.

As for herself, every morning on waking she gives thanks to the God she doesn't disbelieve in. Although she can't credit him with saving her, she needs this outlet for her gratitude.