# Beware of Despair

By [Sandra Rhee](https://paragraph.com/@sandrarhee), 2025-12-31

story, fiction, emotion

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Suzy hadn't lost her job.

That morning, her alarm had triggered a series of actions, ones she took some days and skipped on others, all leading to yet another alarm, not a set one but one with a fifteen minute grace period, that ushered her to her black Prius waiting in the car port outside, which culminated in her black flats pattering on the dirty pavement in a parking lot, then the street, then a linoleum floor on the 15th floor of 800 Wilshire Grand, after which the black flats remained in a four square feet space for nine hours, followed by the exact route backwards.

The black flats were swapped with a pair of Birkenstocks. She went on a walk.

Her eyes drifted along house after house as her legs carried her past bushes, stop signs, dogs, and more bushes. The sun had not bothered to show up, but neither had the clouds or the wind. Above was just blue.

Suddenly she realized, in a full body way, the definition of _despair_.

There is nothing I can do, now or later. My talents, and my potential, will be squished, balled up, and thrown away, by everyone, as it is now.

There is no other future.

In the same way she had learned the definition of _love_ with Chris's head on her lap in 2017, the world dropped this on her.

It was shame she hadn't received _calm,_ or something unique but more palatable for a Wednesday. Maybe something like _dejavu_.

She cried as she walked home.

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_Written by Sandra Rhee. Originally published at_ [_sandrarhee.com/writing/beware-of-despair_](https://sandrarhee.com/writing/beware-of-despair)_._

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*Originally published on [Sandra Rhee](https://paragraph.com/@sandrarhee/beware-of-despair)*