What do I say when I'm tired?

She looked at me with dark eyes that were marked by many sleepless nights, hard work, and fatigue. “Try to stay healthy, I see you are so tired?!”. “Yes, try to stay healthy, for yourself, for your children. No one loves you. This morning, my husband asked: “What are you doing that makes you so tired?”…

You said that when you are tired, you really just want your husband to ask, "What medicine do you take? I'll buy it for you?", "Do you want to see a doctor? I'll take you," or simply "What do you crave? I'll buy it for you." But those seemingly simple things only exist in your imagination. The husband's usual question when his wife is sick is: "What are you doing that makes you so tired?" with a frown that he doesn't even bother to hide.

“So what did you answer?”

No one likes to be tired all the time. And if you are tired and your husband cares about you, pretending to be tired is worth it. If your husband frowns and throws you questions that you don't know how to answer, I bet no woman wants to be tired. I said that, thinking my husband would understand, but unexpectedly, he said: "The "density" of your tired days is alarming. Other women are not always gloomy and tired like you." At this point, you just half-smile: "Other women are tired, they complain to their husbands, why do you complain to my husband so I know to compare?" Then you turn your face to the wall. Facing a blank wall when you are tired turns out to be more comfortable with a husband who cannot understand and share.

My friend, over thirty, sometimes still considers herself older than women in their 40s and 50s… She said that when she comes home, her eyes are tired and her back aches. Her young children are moody, and when they see their mother, one wants to hold the other and the other wants to be carried on her back. Many times after work, she has to “avoid” her children, hide in her own room to read books and listen to music, let the children play with each other and keep her back from groaning after a day at the office. That boring scene still has no promise of when “the sky will be bright again”. Someone said that women over 30 are the most beautiful age, but the most beautiful age is nowhere to be seen, only exhaustion and boredom when her eyes are tired, her back aches and she is ready to frown and snap back just because of her husband’s untimely frown.

* * * * *

Another friend - Na almost left her husband after being bitten by an ant. It was a small ant with the ability to "kill" and cause injuries. She accidentally crushed it to death when it was crawling near her eye. At that time, if she had thought about it more wisely, she would not have done that. But because she was afraid that the ant might bother her eyes, she simply thought of crushing it to death.

And then, exhausted, Na went to sleep, not thinking that she would face the upcoming disasters because of a small ant. While she was in a daze, her body was burning hot, and she woke up. Her entire eye area was swollen and burning, unable to lift it. She had to fumble around to find her phone, panicking and dialing her husband. Na was always careful in emergency situations, putting the letter A before her husband's name, so she could call him immediately, even without looking at the screen. It took almost a lot of effort for Na to finish her story. In response to her efforts was her husband's voice, broken in the sounds 1, 2, 3 do do...: "Look, I'm more than 10 kilometers away and can't come back right away. Just apply some balm and it'll be fine." Mac Na tried to explain further, with all sorts of expressions of pain, pleading, anger..., her husband remained calm: "In short, it was a poisonous ant bite, right? It's just an ant, why make such a big deal out of it? If you want, I'll call Linh to take you to the hospital, I can't be there right away anyway."

“Linh” was her husband’s driver. If she really only needed a driver to take her to the hospital, Na had a series of services around her, and there was no need to bother with a private driver who was far away. Na took the initiative to turn off the phone. She felt as if someone had rubbed salt into her heart. Na intended to ignore it and wait for her husband to come home to see her face and body, to teach him a lesson. But then, in unbearable pain, she randomly dialed the phone number from the most recent call. Na couldn’t remember what she said to the person on the other end of the line, and couldn’t even hear what they said because her head was pounding. Luckily, it was an old classmate who had called this morning to invite her to a class reunion. It had been 5 or 6 years since they last saw each other.

Her friend took Na to the hospital. After a few days in the hospital, no one dared to mention Na's husband's name because if he accidentally mentioned it, Na would cry like crazy. Her husband, after a drinking party, came home and heard about his wife's condition. He rushed to the hospital and saw the doctor taking intensive care of his wife. He knew he was wrong, but Na did not give him a chance to meet her and apologize. They have been separated since Na returned home from the hospital.

One day, on FB, Na saw a picture of her husband’s skinny arm holding an old bowl to catch the rubber sap. Along with it was the words “Missing you”. Na called Linh, her husband’s personal driver. The driver said that he had gone to the South to work on rubber with his friends. It was windy and rainy there, and he had a cold but he was determined not to come back. Because he said, living near her but without her, life was meaningless. Just hearing that, Na felt all her pain disappear. She choked up and told the driver to tell him to come back. Linh shook her head: “Only you can tell him to come back. Forget it, sister, in case something happens…”.

Much later, when the couple had settled down, the husband told her that it was a “test” that he “risked” to see if his wife still loved him. Luckily, she still loved him. In fact, he was on a business trip to the South, stopped by his friend’s rubber plantation, took a picture, and the story happened with… half the truth. When Na called him back, he knew he had found the happiness that he had built up over a decade, but sometimes just a few minutes of carelessness when his wife was sick could also cause him to lose it.

* * * *

Hanh is not as lucky as many other women. For women like Hanh, just having all her limbs intact is already lucky and happy. Hanh was dragged more than 10 meters by a train, her lower body was crushed. The day Hanh opened her eyes in the hospital, waking up after days of coma, seeing her body wrapped in white bandages, she just wanted to close her eyes and die. At that moment, she also realized that there was a familiar face beside her, looking at her with sparkling eyes and a wide, radiant mouth. It was Hoa, her fiancé. "Thank God, you're alive." That was all he said. And innocent tears welled up in Hoa's eyes. Hanh said that because of his smile and innocent tears - her fiancé, Hanh felt more determined, not allowing herself to think about death.

Anyone who looks at the love story of Hanh and her husband can use the words "fairy tale", "happy ending"... when seeing the girl who had both legs amputated years ago, who thought she could not overcome herself at her young age, now a mother, a wife who always keeps a bright smile and warm eyes on her face. But for Hanh, as the person involved, Hanh said, there is nothing like a fairy tale, just because Hanh has Hoa who is always by her side, always smiling and holding her hand whenever Hanh is weak.

Hanh was the girl I met by chance in the park one weekend morning, when she and her husband took their twin children for a walk. The two little ones were as beautiful as angels, chatting and playing together under an old tree. Their parents, one in a wheelchair, the other sitting on a bench, held hands and smiled.

If someone is tired and suddenly sees that image like I did, I bet all the tiredness in their heart will gently fly away like clouds and wind...

Vo Thu Huong