Exchanges: When women over-give.
- Sarah Poet
- May 15, 2024
- 5 min read
Updated: Aug 6
"Exchanges" is a new creative project by Sarah Poet. It's a compilation of vignettes about various dynamics of energy exchange, collected through experience, for the reader to contemplate. 1) What was the exchange? 2) What resources - monetary & non-monetary- were involved? 3) What was spoken and what was unspoken about the exchange agreement? I am fascinated by the topic of human exchanges. I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
When I’d moved in with D, his bed was horrendous and was immediately sent to the dumpster. I can’t believe I moved in with a man who slept on a sagging old mattress with hard, stained pillows. That, in and of itself, says something about me and I'm not proud of it.
Was he neglecting himself by sleeping on that bed? Was he being thrifty? I’m not sure.
We used my bed. Moved it into his bedroom, in his house, that now we were apparently all going to share and “make a life together.” That was what he’d asked me to do. In his house.
I wouldn’t sleep in a bed with those pillows, and we used mine. He loved them. Organic shredded latex - my favorite kind of pillow. He had never heard of such a pillow but he was happy to have a more comfortable bed.
He loved the pillows, the comfortable bed, and the woman inside of that bed. I am not sure if he actually loved me, exactly, but he seemed to love loving the woman in his bed.
He had built a room for my son in his house so that we could move in. He took the whole long studio room of an upstairs and built a wall with his buddies over a weekend and said that it was okay, because it would increase the property value to have two bedrooms anyway, instead of one.
I truly couldn’t believe that a man would invite my son and I to live with him and “make a life together.” I’d already been through so much, and so much loss, that D seemed to be a really safe bet. He had a good heart, I thought. He was pretty wholesome, he loved my kid, and I never thought he’d hurt us.
