Dale Engelson Sessa

      

Now that my family was complete and we were living a high-end lifestyle in a beautiful home, I confronted the gilded-cage life that Ellis provided in lieu of tenderness and love. Overshadowing this ease was an unsettling prospect of marital nothingness. I managed to be the loving devoted mother of my two children and yet I felt a strong need to define myself in my high-pressure world of excess. I

was brimming with things to say with no adult to say them to. Ellis and I moved about inertly, hearing only echoes of our shoes clicking against the wooden floors. Have you ever had a time when you’ve asked yourself, ‘Is this it?’

 

I felt myself wasting away from headaches, succumbing to a prefabricated wifely role in a city where tradition and social status

were often gauged by the things you have rather than by what you have emotionally. It’s an unequivocal illusion that if you possess

the right clothing and the ideal house, snappy cars, and have lots of money in the bank, your life will be perfect.

 

Nonetheless, I faithfully got up early in the morning, made breakfast for my family, played dolls and built Lego castles with my delightful children, and then usually went into Beverly Hills for lunch and shopping. I thought it was enough and that it was honorable, until it wasn’t anymore.