Just Breathe

By Kathleen May

Tessa finds her world gone, and her pain too much to face alone. Like so many women, she hits her low before she can find a way to discover what she needs to heal. Just when life seemed close to perfect, the bottom drops out of her world for the second time, and she must heal once again. Like many of us, Tessa gets stronger, faces her poor choices, embraces her good and her bad, and in the end, she rises but not without the reality of facing her pain. Along the way she finds herself in some steamy positions, with some men who elevate her expectations, and some she just can't shake. The ghosts of the past just will not stop holding onto her, and the men in her present don't tell her the truth.

This is a novel that is deeply relatable, as readers will find themselves so caught up in Tessa's world that for just a moment, they will forget their own. Tessa's story will help you understand challenges, mistakes, and growth. This book is a reminder to all women to not judge each other. Pain comes in all forms. We all heal differently, and the spicy fun parts of the book are to remind you to be a woman, if you feel it! The choices Tessa makes are to engage you in understanding and knowing that we don't all make the same choices, but we are all sisters. This book is written to tickle all the "feels" – anger, confusion, empathy, compassion, hope, and to remind you, that you too will survive. Just remember the first rule is to "Just Breathe"!

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098386184

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Just Breathe

©2021 Kathleen May

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Print ISBN 978-1-09838-617-7

eBook ISBN 978-1-09838-618-4

Contents

Introduction

Chapter One Endings That Are the Beginning

Chapter Two Closure or Not

Chapter Three Moving On

Chapter Four The Twist

Chapter Five The Surprise

Chapter Six The Truth

Chapter Seven Being Brave

Chapter Eight Happiness

Chapter Nine Believe

Chapter Ten Unpacking

Introduction

If you are not twenty-five, you should immediately put this book down. No disrespect. And I do realize it will feel like disrespect, but you can’t possibly have lived enough to understand this book. I am sure that makes you upset with me, but to be honest, that’s okay. This book isn’t about me. It’s about Tessa. And it’s about time women over forty started to get a space in the world and a little respect for our greatness; there are plenty of books out there for you twenty-five-somethings, so move it along.

This book is written, not just as another erotic book or an opportunity for sex-shaming, it is intended to be an escape read. Get sucked into Tessa’s life and enjoy the chance to live as if you are her. Have empathy for her. Have anger at her disappointment. But then when it’s over, miss her. It’s a lot like parenting but you can set the book down if you need to or read it over again if you are that lonely.

This book isn’t intended to create another version of the Grey situation. I felt that was a smear of the sex world and completely degrating that someone felt a woman would have a sexual breakthrough around a man who likes to spank her; please, that is laughable. Not only that but please don’t tell me what I did or didn’t like, there isn’t a woman over forty who didn’t think during that scene screw you, you spoiled little man-child. There were a few moments I thought he needed a spanking, and not a dirty mom MILF one, a serious you’re a spoiled little shit spanking. And news flash! You can be wet and not enjoy the experience … just saying! But don’t tell the men, they are not ready for that disappointment. Don’t even get me started; this is usually where my children say, Too late. Not that bondage and a good spanking isn’t a fun time, but it certainly isn’t a revolutionary moment for women and men sexually, moving on.

This book Just Breathe is written as a fiction. I kept it hidden for ten years waiting to finish it, embarrassed about how I could be misjudged because of it, asked by so many if they are someone in the book. I was nervous to share this because I didn’t want the topic of the book to hurt my teaching career or allow people to judge me. And then life issued me a series of blows that I learned to come back from and maintain my sense of humor and some of my happiness. I decided more women needed permission to really figure out what makes them happy and what makes them not happy; that in itself was a revolution for me. We are permitted to be not happy and we are also permitted to do something about it! Shocking! More importantly, I think we need to open the door to not just simply the self-care version but the true act of accountability and self-respect for our own happiness without blaming others or finding fault in our partner or feeling shame for our emotions or sexuality. More women need to feel like they are not alone. And if I can do that in my writing, then I am not keeping it hidden under my bed anymore.

It’s time to do the work and truly empower women. This book, this little story, is just a fun recall of a part of our main character Tess’s life and her journey through relationships. I hope you find a connection with Tessa and maybe even see a small part of yourself in her. The things that happen to Tess, happen to others. Life is a strange work of coincidences and paths. The universe gives us moments that sometimes we are not prepared for and yet we have to dig deeper and find the skills to manage. Some people become a victim and live life stuck in a role of self-pity and excuses, while others grow and get gritty and find confidence in the skill of survival.

Tessa represents all the women I know who have established a family and done all the things we have been told to do and still are not happy; until one day, it’s gone. Then the real journey to discover who we really are will happen. The journey to being happy and feeling content and in love with your life each day is one that is much bigger than we knew it would be. Life changes you. Tessa finds a way through great amounts of pain and disappointment and, in the end, owns her happiness while still sharing a life with someone.

I don’t believe the answer to the rising divorce rate and unhappy relationships is about couples therapy. I believe it’s about growth and choices. I do believe, as men and women, we are in great turmoil and we are trying to handle this with love and respect but some of us are lost. Roles have shifted and the things we thought were set out for us to secure and have happiness often don’t result in happiness and then we feel confused and lost.

We as a generation, in relationships, seem spoiled and entitled when it comes to love and family. This doesn’t come without a solution. The simpler the solution often means the more difficult the execution. We need to talk. And not to hurt or blame others but to explain the things we have survived and how those things changed us. We need to share the permission to explore who we are with the support of those who love us. As men and women, we need to set aside the microaggressions; be prepared to do the work to earn the good stuff, the real stuff, the stuff that makes us toss our cookies and brace for more. I will let Tessa explain!

Tessa demonstrates this. Every day we have a choice to make. We can find fault in our world and those around us. We can find blame and see the negative, or we can make an intentional choice to do something, to take the actions that support us building a beautiful life. If Tessa could make the choice to find happiness and not allow all the possible excuses to stop her, perhaps sharing her story will inspire another person to do the same.

Be brave, be vulnerable, be kind to others and yourself. Be true to yourself, be accountable for your happiness, stop judging and start appreciating, read with an open mind. And please, keep this book out of the hands of children! Lol;)

Written with love,

Kathleen May

Chapter One

Endings That Are

the Beginning

The room was dark, but the light drifted across their bodies. The sheets felt cool against Tessa’s skin. She turned away from the boy who lay beside her and looked towards the ceiling, her hand feeling her own skin. With her body draped across the bed, barely touching him, she let out a sigh of contentment. She had successfully chased another memory from her sleep, found another moment when her mind could not think outside its own climax. On the other side of the door was everything they wanted to forget, the stuff they didn’t want to face. Here, in this bed, was the safety of each other. Two bodies entangled in passion, driving away the things they couldn’t change and embracing all the courage they needed to face the next day. Tessa had managed to do what every woman must in order to find pleasure. She had managed to forget the demands and the details and put her needs first; for a brief moment, she paused her overthinking and let her needs rise. It isn’t something we do as women, but she needed to feel this release and she needed to find a way to get there. So she did. She let herself have this. Not like chocolate or wine, or simple, stupid, moment-long pleasures, but for a thrust at her, out-of-control passion. She let her whole body have a release of endorphins that she needed to stop the pain for just a few minutes. And there was no shame in this, no regret, no judgment.

Tessa lay there feeling every inch of her body rewarded with the chemistry of pleasure. There, with each other, they felt the night fade into daylight and another day fall upon them. Another day to face what lay on the other side of the door; a nasty reality, one they would face like adults. To the rest of the world, they held jobs, had friends, and appeared to be healed and well-adjusted, highly functioning adults. What happened here between adults, between the sheets, stayed here. It was a frantic search for pleasure; one they found tangled in each other’s bodies, in the dark, emotionally, pretending things were okay, forgetting how much energy it took from them all day to survive under a mask of functioning like normal people. Here with each other they had one goal. One single goal. To feel wanted.

While it had seemed true to Tessa that music was written to express the feelings of your hurt and the pain you felt when words couldn’t, she also felt there hadn’t been a song written sad enough to tell her story. That thought was funny to Tessa; she had successfully overachieved pain! ‘Great job, Tessa,’ she thought to herself with a side of sarcasm. Sometimes she felt mad there wasn’t a day long enough to find happiness. If you could just tell me when, she said, tell me what day on the calendar I will wake and stop loving him, stop missing him, stop seeing his face. Tell me what day, the voice inside her head screamed at her and another voice laughed hysterically at her. Her heart grabbed at her throat and her eyes filled with water. So beautiful was their life and now so sad and so tragic. So ugly she didn’t want to share these feelings with anyone for fear that sharing them made them real. The images of them together filled her mind as she lay beside the man she was using to try and chase away these very thoughts. Here in this room, on this bed, she could force the world out of her mind and focus on one goal for a short time. One goal that gave her great pleasure; she told herself this over and over, hoping it would become something she could believe.

Tessa knew that there wasn’t a drink or any man that would ever heal this pain. She wondered if the pain would just change her, if she would just become the bitter cold bitch that lived inside her. She fought off that thought. It had changed who she was. She could never again be the person she was before him, and she couldn’t decide if she was grieving the loss of him or the loss of her past life the most. Tessa had tried them all: wine, vodka, food. She had offered her body so many options to numb her feelings with, to hide her beauty with. But under it all, she had some stupid need to go on. Some ridiculous driving force that said, You are better than this. So the voices in her head told her to get up, to keep moving, to take this pleasure that no one would know about. The pleasure of