And Tomorrow I Go March Against the Tyrant. I March For Women’s Rights And The Rights Of All People
Scared
Understanding
If you have read this blog before you know that I have been struggling with B’s decision to take a “business” trip to Asia without me. For the past several years we had gone together to try to build closeness in our fragile relationship. I appreciated those times together, the shared experiences and, of course, time away from the kids. So I was hurt when he said he was going alone. Then when I asked about something that seemed odd he admitted he was going somewhere else too. I fretted and wondered if he would have even told me about this new itinerary and I felt betrayed because it brought back past business travels in which odd things had happened. But it was more than that, this anxiety I was feeling, anxiety that felt all consuming and I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. Until one night I realized it was rooted in fear from the past. Fear because the last time we were apart for 10 days, when I arrived home he wanted a divorce and it brought me back to two years ago when I lost my rudder. I can only imagine this is what PTSD feels like. Bleak, scary and uncertain. And while I knew that our relationship wasn’t in the same place it was back then my raw emotions couldn’t process that fact for emotions are funny things and whether accurate or not they pull at the soul and can stretch you out of shape.
So now he is away on “business”and not a “vacation” as I insist it is. And B didn’t bother to tell me that even though he would arrive in the wee hours of the morning on Saturday, he wouldn’t actually be engaging in any sort of business activity until Tuesday. I’m sorry, in my mind that is a vacation. Now I could be really upset about this. Not that he wasn’t really doing the business that he insisted he was but upset because once again the pattern of 1/2 truths has appeared to prevail. But this time I am working on really trying to see this in a different light…I hope I can succeed.
It has taken me a while to realize that not everyone loves us in the way we think we need or in the way we would like. Often, they just love us in the way that they are capable of loving us often to our disappointment or dismay. If life were ideal I would have complete and utter honesty but that is uncomfortable for B because he grew up not being allowed to express his feelings and he doesn’t feel he can express his feelings to me.This hurts though I have brought some of it on myself. B feels that to express his needs is shameful or selfish and as a result he hides them to himself and from others. So while I would have loved for him to be honest and say “I don’t have any meetings until Tuesday but I have decided that I need a few days to relax and have a few days of ME time,” he couldn’t allow himself to do that even though I asked him to just be honest and admit he wanted time alone.
So instead of being upset about the fact that he was a little less than honest I am trying to see his actions as those of a man who cannot ask for what he needs. A man who does not believe he deserves time alone. A man who believes anything he wants that does not involve his family is selfish on his part. Sure, I wish he had just been 100% honest but if I look through into his soul I know he is incapable of focusing on himself. And so I am trying to let go of the fact that he cannot love me as I wish but instead loves me as he can. It is flawed and sometimes it hurts but at this point in life this is how he loves. So I can choose to be angry or I can choose to accept knowing he is doing the best he can at this point in time. Today I choose acceptance…I hope I will choose it tomorrow too! For I deserve it and so does he.
Homesick
At 10:00 p.m. the first night I dropped her off at camp I received the call I had been dreading.
“I’m homesick,” sob, sobbing harder, and then louder.
“My roommates didn’t show up.” SOB, tears falling so hard and fast as they hit the phone it sounded like rain hitting the roof.
“You don’t have roommates?”
“Yes, I convinced two other girls to join me.”
“I hate it here!” WAAAAHHHHHHHHH
“Don’t you like the pool?”
“No, its horrible!” Sniff, sniff, sniff
“Are you learning any new skills?”
“N-o, I h-a-te it h-e-r-e” hicup, hicup, hyperventilate.
“Are you wanting me to pick you up?”
“Yes, come immediately!!!!”
“Honey, by the time I would get there it would be 3 a.m. and I just drove home from their today. I can’t do that and I won’t do that!”
WAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH
And the longer we talked the worse it got until I finally realized I was in a no-win situation and she would keep this up until Sunday, the battery power on her phone died, or at the very least until the sun rose.
In exasperation I said to my littlest
“Honey, I have to go, so put on your big girl panties and tough it out. Here’s the thing, you have the ability to choose what this weekend will be for you. You can choose to be miserable or you can choose to be happy, to have a great time, learn lots and create a bunch of memories. It’s your choice. Personally, I would choose happy because that is the only REAL choice you have if you want to have a good life. Start practicing making good choices.”
And then I hung up the phone before it got wet as the salty drops started to splatter around me.
In The Hands Of Fate
Sometimes I look over and see the silhouette of B moving against the morning sky, purple and pink, rising over the peaks of the mountains as morning escapes from yesterday’s grip. I see a man, handsome still, in the middle of mid-life crisis trying to make his way towards tomorrow and whatever that looks like; a life he can no longer define nor see for the house of cards he built has fallen and taken him down with it.
I sneak a peak, my eyes heavy with sleep, as his pants slide over his lean legs, over that smoothed over scar that he got when riding his bicycle, pedaling as fast as he could before flying over the handlebars and landing on a sharp rock along the creek. That was a 5 stitcher and he wears it like he owns it because it is now part of who he is and has been for some time. With a swift tug on his pants I see what I imagine to be that same sense of determination and the speed with which he rode that bike but using it now so that he doesn’t have to slow down and make those hard decisions. About himself. About me. About what he is doing or not doing with his life.
As I lay in bed I hear the coffee pot downstairs start to gurgle and come to life. He sits quietly reading the Bible until I hear the pull of the yoga mat and the PLOP it makes as it lands squarely on the floor. Now he will exercise for 12 minutes. No more, no less. Then in go two slices of toast which magically pop up and in 2.5 seconds they will be slathered in warmed butter topped by a generous helping of tart thick lemon curd. The coffee cup I bought him in Michigan drops softly to the counter like water on stone and the refrigerator door softly opens, the coffee creamer in the impossible to reach left hand corner. It never fails.
Sometimes I wonder how it would feel to leave him? Would I miss him alone or would it be all the familiar sounds that accompany his particular way of doing things…fast, precise, and predictable that I might someday long for? Or are both so interwoven one cannot be thought of without being accompanied by the other? Would I think of him every time I heard a toaster pop from now until eternity? Eternity is a long time, after all. Is it something as simple as a toaster that makes you stay?
Leaving seems like such an easy thing to do. We leave our children, we leave our friends, and we leave our co-workers but most of the time we have the luxury of knowing we are coming back. How do you put one foot in front of the other if you are closing the door forever? Leaving scares me because I know without a doubt that if I left the loss would be immense, carrying me downstream like a river that has jumped its banks. Can you grab onto something to save yourself when you are being swept away so fast or do you just go under? Do you scratch, claw, and cling until your own blood is shed before moving on or do you step lightly onto the nearest rock with your dignity and grace intact?
Of course, I also know that if I left there would also be relief. Not in leaving him per se but in finally being out of the limbo that has wrapped itself around my windpipe for the past 9 months, squeezing so tight that air can neither come nor go…stuck somewhere in that thin membrane that separates life from death. To taste the crisp air and to rid my lungs of the stale would be a blessing.
Yet even with all the questions and angst, I know that I would miss B desperately. His humor, how he takes care of my sexual needs before he worries about his own, and the shine in his eyes as he watches our children grow into themselves. I would miss all that we have shared and created…the houses we built, the closeness we had that once knew no bounds, and the walks we have taken through fallow fields in order to start anew. I would miss my best friend, my travel buddy and the man who I watched tenderly hold each child, some born of him, some not; and give them the life and love that each person deserves. We have mostly had an amazingly rich life together and for that I am thankful.
While I stand on this precipice I also think about my own transgressions. I realize that in the past several years I have been so deep in my own pain and worry that I couldn’t recognize the extent of his. His fears about his job, getting older, providing for children with special needs, and living with a woman he doesn’t understand and who no longer understands him. And I confess that even if he could have told me his hurts, sorrows and pain, that I may not have been in a place to hear him and to understand that the depth of his pain was so old and so deep that it had turned to crude.
And so I wait. Trying to act and not react. Trying to find peace within myself before looking for anything from him. And in the back of my mind I wonder that if that time comes to leave…will I know it? Will I recognize it for what it really is or will I see it through my own imperfect and distorted lens… pushing things forward at a pace that makes us fly over the handlebars resulting in a patchwork of stitches; the resulting scars forever visible for all the world to see. Or can I just decide to stop pedaling and make the decision to coast; in an attempt to find contentment with where I am at this point in time and in no hurry to reach some unknown destination? For one thing I have discovered is that we often meet our fate on the road we take to avoid it and truth be told, I am in no hurry to find out precisely what it is.
Lost At Sea
We are all sailors on the sea. We are told that we are captains of our own ships. We have the ability to sink our vessels or fight the high winds and 30 ft squalls to bring ourselves into port safely.I used to think this anyway. With this “maybe divorce” looming I am not so sure that I am my own captain anymore. Unfortunately, it appears that I let someone else take my wheel and they are slowly taking me down with my own ship.
For numerous years I have been lucky. The storms that have hit my married life have been small and few.They have been manageable and by hoisting a few sails we swiftly left those muddy ripples and sailed into calm waters. But should we have? Should we have taken every escape that came available to us instead of staying in the deep seas and bailing the waters that might capsize us? In fighting mother nature do you learn lessons about togetherness and working as a team that we missed by spending our time in spring showers rather than hurricanes? Maybe we would have known what to do when this single but mighty hurricane hit had we fought more side-by-side battles while at sea.
You would think I would know what to do. That surviving at sea would be in my blood; for I come from a long line of fishermen. Strong, brave folk who fought the weather and the ocean creatures to eek out a living stuffing cod into barrels. More than half of those men died young leaving young widows and children behind. Their names decay on plaques that dot the landscape in fishing towns throughout Canada and New England. They were Lost At Sea and so am I. Wheelless and rudderless I am sucked down into the riptides of a marriage that knows not where it’s going, but if it sinks, will ultimately leave the children behind and washed over by sadness.
Yet today, I refuse to abandon ship, standing by the captain as the waves wash over us. And I am scared, wet and shivering with buckets of tears rolling down my face, the saltwater stinging my skin, and I am, wanting for one brief second, just to feel the warmth that used to be an everyday part of my life envelop me once more.
Finally I pray… like most cowards looking into the eyes of the scary unknown…wanting some sort of guarantee that it all was for naught and there is some sort of salvation in the end.
“Our Father…” I begin, my teeth chattering…seawater filling my lungs as the waves toss me… separating me from the captain… slowly taking me under… and then… finally a long way away.
*All posts are copyrighted 2016 and may not be used without the consent of the author*
Control…Do We Ever Really Have It? Or Raw II
You ask me why I have a need to control things. The short answer would be my sister’s severe illness when I was such a young child. A young child whose parents thought she was too young to know all that our family was facing. I remember being snuck into the hospital (back then siblings were not allowed in) and seeing my sister, after many months of absence, now reduced to a human skeleton, not the happy normal-sized kid I was used to seeing. The guilt I felt was tremendous because I did not understand the situation. I was not told. I guessed a lot and interpreted things wrong. Guilt at wondering why bags of presents were being delivered to our home for her and not understanding why I was not thought of which in my young mind =not loved and not noticed. And how, I wondered even then, could I feel that sense of hurt and jealousy when she looked like death. There was also the guilt at hearing her scream when her shunt was cleaned daily and knowing I was okay. And even all these years later that guilt that rears its head in my professional life and makes me pass out on the floor when I hear a patient scream. I can look at anything but don’t let me hear the pain or I am a goner. In my book guilt can sometimes=need for control= if I am in control less chance of guilt/suffering/pain. I know its wrong but sometimes my mind still takes me back to that little lost/confused and sad child.
I remember during this time of sickness and confusion, being moved from place to place while my parents sat a bedside vigil. That sense of unconnectedness does things to you. I understand the need to do that now…as a parent…but I didn’t as a child. Yes, my parents were sure I was in good hands. I knew most of the people I was with but some were strangers. It made me scared because back then I didn’t know for sure what was happening and no one thought to tell me. And being left and having no control in where you are going invoked feelings of jealousy that made me wonder why my sister was so special and I was not. Everyone knew where she was…did anyone know about me?
Being so aware of death/illness makes you acutely aware of the little control you actually have so I guess I have spent my years trying to control all aspects of my life which we all know is an exercise in futility. Some people handle it by drinking. Others have sex with strangers trying to make a connection that somehow they feel they missed. Others drive too fast, take too many pills or eat too much. Others show no obvious issues with it at all. Mine is control. And control, and the lack of it I feel in our relationship, makes me frightened to death and sometimes I push for a resolution because I feel like that little girl again. Her world chaotic. Her world upside dow. Her world with no forthcoming answers. Her world in control of others and now the master controller is B. And I feel like 1,000 little scattered pieces laying about, disorganized, without the glue of control to hold me together.
You wonder why I feel the need for control.
I watched my parents divorce. All the heartache and stress that went along with a cheating husband. My mother’s pain written in a note I have to this day. And then they divorced and within three years my mother was dead at 50, killed, I believe rightly, by all the stress which took her, a non-smoker, in the form of lung cancer. And I look like her. I have the same moles. I have the same body type. The same nose. And I don’t want to become a statistic like her. Illogical I know. But still dead after all this upheaval… after all the pain none of which was her doing…though that is not the case with me. I have caused some of my own pain. But this I know: stress kills and I am sure it is killing me. Maybe like it did her.
I have enough stress with two children who have significant challenges in their lives. Autism = stress. And now my marriage teetering on the edge of HWY 1 with no guardrail and a 1,000 ft drop to the ocean below. And sometimes I wonder if I will just drop dead of a heart attack or will it be a slower more painful way to contemplate the end of life as I know it because this much stress is like a IV drip of poison creeping into my veins. And so I want to take back control from B in a misguided attempt to avert what was my mother’s fate and not have it be my own. Because I want to live free of heartache, being responsible as much as humanly possible for my own pain, when I must endure it, and not have it foisted on me like a drunken sailor grabbing me from behind and taking what is not his to take.
The mind is a funny thing. We know that what we may be thinking is be wrong.Screwy thoughts that we recognize as inaccurate. But those feelings are what trip us up and make us believe things that we know in our heads don’t make sense but to our hearts don’t matter. Our hearts often have a mind of their own, too busy working to keep the blood flowing, rather than worry about correctness of how it is being done. Yet, my heart hears unsaid words. It sees hidden emotions on a persons face. My heart squeezes the truth that goes coarsing through my veins and it ignores the science of it all. My heart stings. It whispers with every whoosh. And for the past few days, I would bet my bottom dollar that it has cracked in two, blood leaking into my drowning sticky soul.
You ask me why I feel the need for control. It’s because I no longer trust you to take care of my heart and the love that it holds. You have held my heart in your hands and you have not been gentle with it. You have treated it as callously as a hooker treats her next trick.I no longer trust you to take care of me the way I felt I was not taken care of when I was a child. I no longer trust that my pain is just pain and not leading to something more deadly as in the case of my mother. I no longer trust your words or your actions because you don’t love me and trust is the glue that holds love together.
You wonder why I feel the need for control? Because parts of that little girl remain behind and while I may be a very strong and capable woman sometimes that little girl is stronger when she faces what she perceives to be danger. And she tantrums and pushes for resolution while trying to gain control. Because she is unsure. Scared. Feels unloveable. And somehow she incorrectly believes that control will give it back to her and make her feel whole again. Strong again. Capable once more.
Someday I hope that someone somewhere will take that little girl her by the hand, thrust a mangy stuffed gray much loved puppy into her empty arms, and along with a great hug; tell her that it will all be okay. And maybe someday she will understand in her heart of hearts that control is an illusion and that the only thing she really ever controlled was herself and, finally, that will be enough and she can just let go and get on with living and playing hopscotch again.
Raw
I read a few of my writings to him
He was hurt and upset
Believed my words and thoughts were raw
He said:
“Why didn’t you let me see these
Before we went into the therapists office
Why would you save this for in there?
Why didn’t you let me see your words and let me
think about them before going in?”
I think:
It’s suppose to be a safe place
Exactly where we are suppose to take
Our deepest hurts and fears
Where we have someone to help us
Through the words and through the tears
He thinks:
Why did you ambush me?
It’s his real question
Unspoken with words
But spoken just the same
I think:
Maybe I just want to hear from your heart
And not listen to your rehearsed
Very logical answers
Maybe I long to know
What you really FEEL not THINK
To hear words spoken from the heart
Not encased in the laughter you use
To deflect the feelings that threaten
To overwhelm you like a bad case
Of poison ivy
I am:
Guilty and sad that I hurt him
Wishing that I could say with words
The things I so easily write on paper
Perhaps they would be less complex
And easier to hear
But I am not sure that words are whats needed now
Maybe its deep feelings
Because we both want to run from them
Instead of dealing with the pain they contain
I know:
I still love him
That it hurt me deeply to hurt him
Even if that was not my intention
My intention was to be HEARD
And I wish I could take back the words
I said because I don’t want to see
Him retreat
Because of my pain
And his pain
Because really he just wants peace, love and rainbows
Happiness and joy
He claims he is a simple man
Uses it as an excuse
Not to touch those parts of him
That make him feel vulnerable and afraid
He says:
He is a simple man
But we both know better than that
I’m Confused…Can Confusion Increase Creativity?
I’m confused. Most of my life I have been confused about one or two areas of my life at a time. Now I am confused about everything. My marriage, my children, how to plan for the future, how to sit with the silence and how to live in the now. Everything is confusing and I DON’T LIKE IT…one single bit.
One of the major issues I have with being confused is that often you cannot see the forest through the trees. This confusion often leads to living in limbo, a state I consider akin to having a gas mask at hand with a limited time sensitive filter. Knowing you cannot see, smell or watch the gas coming, do you put the mask on now and risk using up a filter that will protect you for a short but specific amount of time; or do you wait for the person next to you to drop and hope you are not too late in securing it around your face? Yep, for me limbo is one of the worst experiences known to man.
Yet, surprisingly, I have recently experienced confusion as a positive thing as well. Because it seems to me the more confused things are the more creative I’ve become. While confusion can shake your soul, rattle your senses and sometimes lead to a sense of paranoia because you can’t seem to do anything but stand there because either way you move seems equally dangerous or intimidating; it would appear that confusion can also lead to creativity. Instead of seeing only the limiting options of A or B, confusion often allows you to explore many paths that would normally go unnoticed like JJ, Z and Q. Confusion can stretch you, it can lead you and it often makes you examine minute details that while once seemed unimportant become pivotal to your understanding of the situation. It makes you ask the basic questions of:
Who
What
Where
Why
How
It is the answers to these questions which often help clarify the situation.
So I am confused. Really confused. But I am also glad (kind of) because the way I am approaching problems and issues is bringing me a sense of peace that I have looked at all options as I walk this journey. At least all the ones that present themselves at this time. And I am okay with that. Because I am holding the hands of those who have gone before me and they are holding me tight so I feel safe and my doomsday gas mask is put in the deepest darkest corner of my Place of Mysteries.
https://myhusbandwantsadivorce.wordpress.com/2015/10/02/the-place-of-mysteries-303-days-to-fix-this/
The Process Of I LOVE YOU
Okay, I know that at times, I go places where no married person should venture. I question, I imagine, and I play our various scenarios in my mind that really have no business being there. I am working very hard on replacing negative thoughts with super positive meditations and “canceling” the negative thoughts immediately when they enter that place my brain is suppose to be. So last night took me by surprise.
It was late. B and I were cuddling when he said, “I Love You.” He said it with love in his voice and tenderness in his heart. And I froze like a deer in the headlights. My body went cold and I felt suddenly ill. And before I knew it I was saying these words: “How do I know that? I mean you said that to me when you were thinking you wanted a divorce. So you were saying it without really feeling it and so how do I know that when you say it now you really mean it?”
Yeah, I know. A real moment killer.
Because here is the thing. I thought he loved me. And he says he always has and always will love me even though there are times he doesn’t like me much. And I get that. And even though he is communicating his feelings more and letting me inside his head a little, I still experience fear that what he is saying isn’t what he means. And given that he is a man that honors his promises and he promised to give our marriage a year, I worry that on day 366 he will walk in saying “I kept my promise but this isn’t what a really want.”
So how do I learn to trust B and our relationship again? Time? Probably. But I think it is more than that. Somehow I have come to believe that this can be accomplished by trying to surrender my desire to control what I cannot control and I have to stop worrying about things I have no control over. Easier said than done. Yet, I am cognizant that all this controlling/worrying is only serving to steal my energy and it leaves me feeling depleted. It also keeps me feeling lonely and isolated, none of which is helpful nor what I want. So, instead of trying to change what I don’t really have in the first place, I am trying to shift my focus (didn’t work too well last night) to those things I can control because I would rather spend my energy trying to seek joy in my life than trying to force all this negative out. I can choose to work from the positive or the negative. I CHOOSE POSITIVE…at least this minute…give me a break … it’s a process.
Gardy Loo Pismire 