Picture this: I’m pregnant with my second child, ready to spend the rest of my pregnancy buried under fluffy blankets, devouring snacks, and immersing myself in mind-numbing TV. That’s the kind of emotional rollercoaster I’m dealing with, folks. However, my best friend Ava had different ideas.
My comfortable cocoon of binge-watching rubbish TV series was cruelly interrupted by Ava, who decided that I, Liv, was training to become a hermit. “Let’s get you out of these four walls,” she announced, whipping up a strawberry milkshake like some kind of domestic goddess caught in a milkshake-induced euphoria.
She had her heart set on this bizarre, hipster activity called a pottery party. In Ava’s words, a perfect substitute for me becoming a human burrito in front of the TV. It was about shaping some ghastly looking clay into something Pinterest-worthy or slapping paint on atrocious ceramics.
That was the plan, or so Ava thought. Little did we know, we were heading into a theatrical showdown worthy of a daytime soap opera. Just when I had resigned to an evening of feeling like a constipated walrus, trudging through an art and crafts nightmare, my world turned upside down.
We shuffled into the pottery place—an unholy mixture of screeching laughter and the faint whiff of glazed despair, no sign of serene pottery making whatsoever. Fifteen women, strangers united by this clay addiction, were merrily seated, ready to mold clay into masterpieces or monstrosities, take your pick.
Amid this merry chaos, there was laughter, light chit-chat, and everything was going according to Ava’s master plan. That is until one woman decided to solve the mystery of my life with precise precision that would put Sherlock Holmes to shame.
She casually mentioned her boyfriend Malcolm—who, according to her thrilling tale, had dashed away to meet his sister-in-law who had gone into labor. On the fourth of July, Malcolm had magically teleported from our family outing into another woman’s life. I could feel my world spinning faster than the clay wheel.
Livid and curious, I inquired about her Malcolm. My spouse, her boyfriend—Malcolm turned out to be a superhero of babbling excuses, living dual lives and timeline-defying visits to maternity wards.
After a powerful and bitter realization, she found the shocking truth that the man in her screensaver, cozying up with me and our daughter, was also the father of her child. One moment we were painting ceramics, the next we were unraveling my life as if we played the lead in an emotional thriller.
I fled—crumbling under the weight of what felt like a thousand ceramic atrocities, escaping into the solace of a particular bathroom stall and my chaotic whirlwind of thoughts.
Divorce fantasies in full bloom, my stomach knotted in impending motherhood angst, and armed with the exorbitant phone bill inducing rage of a scorned wife, I knew what had to be done. Macabre and surreal, I was plotting to meet with Iron Man himself—my Malcolm—for our last dinner together as the faux family we were.
Justice served, at least emotionally; I was now indulging my chocolate cravings while simultaneously vetting divorce attorneys. I decided I couldn’t fix what my darling Malcolm had carelessly fractured; instead, I’d make a fresh plot free of betrayal and abundant with delectable divorce dinners and vengeance movies.
I now had an undeniable free pass—a ‘get out of jail, family version’ card. Digging into a new life, planting the seeds of freedom, knowing that the daughters Malcolm and I shared deserved a bouquet of unconditional love and absurd truths-laying waste under verbose confessions of questionable achievability.
Hand in hand with Ava, across the pottery’s car park battlefield, our exit was marked with explicit unspoken promises and whispers of desirable endings. Ava, ever vigilant in her best-friend prowess, escorted me back home.
The question loomed: realistic collapsing emotions, dramatic revelations aside, what would you have done? Life’s surreal soap operas continue. Always keep your hand at the ready on a plate of chocolates—they have healing powers truly underestimated by connoisseurs of broken marriages.
If you’ve navigated such a devastating betrayal, I ask you—how did you survive the pottery class of life?
