Taking care of your business is sometimes the hardest job of all

How much is your salary?

Why didn’t you get married?

Why didn’t you give birth?

Did you gain weight?

Why did you lose so much weight?

Where is your husband and why did you go out alone?

I guess we became so obsessed with the public life that we forgot about decency.

In intimacy. On privacy. To the fact that some things are personal and we don’t have to tell them to everyone, nor is it okay to ask someone else.

Or we are so dissatisfied with our lives, that we take comfort in other people’s failures. That rummaging through someone’s intimacy makes us happier, because ours, obviously, can’t make us happy.

My salary depends on my education, on my efforts, on my investment in myself, on my knowledge, on my abilities, on my employer, on my colleagues, on the working hours spent at work, on business partners, on results, on years of proving myself…

My salary, they won’t tell you who I am.

It won’t tell you anything about me. Am I satisfied. Do I want to progress. Am I okay where I am. Do I see injustice. Does it hurt me. Do I want to leave? Has my eyesight weakened. Does my wrist or cervical spine hurt. Do I smile when I go to work. Did I find friends in colleagues or do I not know how to defend myself from knives in the back. Do I deserve better or have I reached my maximum.

I am not defined by a relationship or the fact that I am alone.

Someone chooses to be alone. They don’t need someone else to complete it. To round it off. Someone is a complete, perfect whole, with themselves.

Someone is waiting. Maybe because they don’t want to be with anyone, just not to be alone. Maybe because they didn’t come across the right person. Maybe they would like someone. And someone is not coming. Maybe their hopes had waned. Maybe it hurts them. Maybe they are afraid they will grow old on their own. And they don’t want to.

Someone is married. And unhappy. They thinks of another. About the former. About the future. About illusion. They think someone else would be better. They fights for someone else’s favor. Evaluates your choices. Doubt them. They wonder if they were wrong and if they could have done better. What would it be like if it were…

Someone got a best friend in the partner. They can’t imagine life without them. They are happy, but they don’t need you to confirm their happiness. They don’t have to shout it out loud. They don’t have to put shared pictures on billboards. They can live their happiness privately. Without you in it.

Someone doesn’t want to have kids. They are not ready to take care of another living being and that is fairer than giving birth, because “it is time”. Because “it’s time”. Because “that’s the way it should be.”

Someone has gone through hell to get pregnant, keep a pregnancy, adopt, be a parent… and can’t.

Someone your question steam, like 7 knives and not let the wounds heal. Someone looks at your child and wonders what kind of parent he would be, because he has love for 100 children, and he is afraid that he will not give it to any of them.

Someone is gaining weight because he has problems at work, in a relationship, in marriage. Because he can’t find a partner. Because he can’t become a parent. For some, food is a consolation. For some, hormones have gone wild, for some, not even the whole child of the world helps. And your question doesn’t help either. Successful futile justification does not help. Other people’s penetrating looks and taunts don’t help. Criticism doesn’t help either.

Someone lost weight because he was sick, because his mother died, because he doesn’t sleep at night, because the child is small and playful. Because he wakes up 5 times a night. Because he has a lot of responsibilities. Because he lost his job. Because his salary has been reduced. Because his husband gambled his last kuna. Because he will give the child the last piece of food, and deny himself. Someone’s last thing they need, at that moment, is your stupid question.

Someone’s husband works all day. To provide and afford something for the family. To give them what I didn’t have. They love each other and are best friends. They like to be together. And maybe the moment you see her alone, he’s at work. Maybe she’s tired. Maybe she needs silence. Maybe he wants to experience, that moment when you empty your head and don’t think about anything. Maybe she needs open space. Maybe she ran for 5 minutes for bread and met you. And maybe he’s home too and she’s not tired, neither angry nor sad. Maybe she just likes to be alone sometimes. Without, children, husband, friends, colleagues, parents. Without you.

Not everyone who doesn’t live by your standards and standards of the society is unhappy.

Not everyone is happy with the cards he drew.

It’s not all you see from the outside, the way it looks to you.

Not everyone is ready to share their life publicly with everyone.

Some things are intimate. Some things are private. Some things are personal.

And they should stay that way.