In Kelly Sundberg’s personal essay titled “It Will Look Like a Sunset,” she addresses many issues. She addresses what it is to love; she addresses what it is like to not want to be a single mother; she addresses the role a woman plays and how she looks after everyone besides herself. She addresses wanting to get help but not wanting help — there areso many things addressed in this essay that are so important, but I think the most important is her loving someone who is physically and emotionally toxic for her. She uses all the bad things and substitutes them for the good as if they do not exist. In this essay, she does the same thing: she mentions the good then goes back into the bad. For instance, here’s a situation where she addresses the gentle, loving Caleb:
“One day he joked in bed about what our rapper names would be. I said mine would be “Awesome Possum.” He improvised a rap song titled “Get in my pouch!” I couldn’t stop giggling. I had never met a man who could make me laugh like he could.
This is another situation in which this happens:
”Of everyone I have dated, he was the gentlest. I love his soft hands, his embraces, his kind heart. He wrote me love letters, rub my feet, took me out to lunch, got up first in the morning with our son so I could sleep in. He took care of me. He was more often kind to me and then unkind”
Though these things are sweet, she pairs the good with the bad, and in my mind the bad in this case doesn’t overcome the good. Some things that Caleb has done that she allows us to see are,
“I’m not the type of person to hit a woman,” he said. “So it must be you. You are the one who brings this out and me. I would not be like this if I was with a different woman.”
Another example is
“That same night that Caleb pulled out my hair, he punched me in the spine with such force that my body arched back as though it had been stocked with electricity. I was jolted out of my cave. He did it again. “No” I screamed. I cannot protect myself”
Sundberg also makes a point to leave room between each of the sections as though she is allowing us to have a break from all these painful things we are reading happening to her.
Nearing the ending of the story we see the true struggle that she is facing, loving him or being able to let him go.
“When the older policeman saw the swelling, the black-and-blue, and the toes like a little sausage links, his expression turned into dismay. “That’s bad, that looks broken,” he said. “Ma’am does your husband have a phone number we can reach him at? We need him to come back.” They waited outside, I called Caleb. “I’m sorry,” I said. They are going to have to arrest you.”
You wouldn’t think that you would say sorry to someone that hurts you constantly but her love for him is so real that she feels that only right. This toxic love story is traumatic but moving.