Several weeks back, I briefly mentioned the latest argument
I had with the husband…said something about it being “very instructional…I
learned a lot,” and left it at that. The
truth is, there were things said during that discussion that cut me to the
bone, hurt so bad that I had not the capacity to go anywhere near the wound,
much less examine or attempt to treat it.
Since then, I’ve been doing my level best to skirt the
issue, sidestep the crater…hoping that by pretending it didn’t exist I could
make it go away. I really did NOT want
to look at it; did NOT want to discover that my marriage was ever-so-not as
recovered and rejuvenated as I so fervently wanted to believe.
But the argument haunted me.
His very perception of what we’ve been doing for the past thirty-six
years grabbed me by the throat and would not let go. Seems he has spent all these years bending
over backward to make me happy. And yet,
I am not happy. What is wrong with ME? “You get pretty much everything you ask
for. You ask for a deck, you get
it. You ask for planter boxes, you get
them. Looks to me like you have it
pretty good.”
Really? Really??
Without getting into how desperately I needed you—your help,
your support, your love—when the
restaurant was eating me alive, and you all but turned your back on me…
See if I EVER ask you for anything again.
A few weeks later, he was all smiles and conciliation. “What do you want for your birthday?”
You’re kidding,
right? Hell will freeze over before I
ask you for a birthday gift.
To remain functional, I’ve invested a lot of time and energy
into the building we acquired; and it’s probably a good thing that it is 100
miles from here. It’s provided me with
distance from the thing I could not confront.
But I couldn’t be away all the time, and when I was home, I
was miserable. I would look out the back door at the half-finished deck around
my greenhouse—a project he started earlier this year, got frustrated with and
gave up on—and I would feel not just a burning resentment, but a heavy sadness
settle on my heart. Something as simple
as, “Hey, when are you going to finish that deck?” had become anything but
simple. And how ridiculous, how sad is
that, between two people married for more than three decades? It wasn’t really the unfinished deck that
bothered me. It was what it
represented.
Somehow, that deck became a dragon that I had to slay. Once that project was finished, there would
no longer be a physical manifestation of how broken our relationship still was,
staring me in the face every day. In my bull-headed way, I made up my mind that
if I wanted the work done, I would have to do it. And I wanted the work done.
So I planned and I designed and I thought and I schemed…and
I fretted. The thing is, I knew what
would happen if I set out to do the project myself. It was guaranteed to provoke another
confrontation. And I was pretty sure I
did not want to go where that confrontation was going to send me. But I knew in my heart that trying to sit down
and tell him how I felt—trying to “talk it out”—was not going to work
either. That was what had got us into
this mess to begin with.
Eventually, obsessively weighing the alternatives bore no
fruit other than to take me to where I was on the verge of tears every
minute. In the end, I decided that if I was damned if I did, damned if I didn’t,
I might as well be damned in a chaise longue on my finished deck. And I decided Sunday would be the day.
Sunday morning, I got out of bed burdened with a
determination and a sadness so overwhelming it was like a physical weight. It
felt surreal that, after thirty some years of marriage, I could not ask him to
pick up a hammer or a drill and expect him to gracefully do…what he has always
done. I felt ridiculous and off-balance,
and resentful as hell. I really needed
something, someOne, to help me.
The Almighty has let me know in no uncertain terms that my
Spirit Guides are available to walk me through the difficult passages of my
life. So I don’t know why I always think
first that I have to gird my loins and do things on my own. Sunday morning, I really was in no condition
to Do It Alone. I was a mess. An emotional meltdown was hovering inches
from my head. The resentment and the
unforgiveness were sitting so heavily on my shoulders that I could barely
move. So I thought of Pelican.
Call on pelican when you’re feeling resentful or angry toward someone
and you want to release it…
…when you’re feeling overwhelmed with heavy emotions and want to rise
above them.
Pelican—who had stepped in as the guiding spirit of my
marriage two years ago, and who continued his vigil as I struggled with
flashbacks of resentment and feelings of abandonment inflicted by our struggle
with that stupid restaurant.
Pelican—who reminded me to forgive, to release, to let go. For really the first time, I “called upon” a
Spirit Guide. I gazed at the Pelican
icons I’ve collected, reached out a hand to caress a small statue of a pelican
that sits on my dresser. I would like to
say that I formed a beautiful poetic petition of some kind to call the power of
Pelican to my side. But all I could
really muster through my tears was a weak “Help me out here, guys.” Hoping someone would hear…
After breakfast, I grabbed some tools and went out to the
project site. Through my resentment and
my tears, I managed to ungracefully get a decent start on the job. Enough to make it obvious that I meant business. Husband wandered into the picture about an
hour into my struggles. I was clearing
off my temporary “deck” made of wooden pallets covered with scrap wood,
preparatory to hauling them out of the way to make room for their
replacement.
“You want some help with that?”
A simple question, really.
To normal people. But in this
situation, armed with his, “You get everything you want” comment, an answer was
almost impossible. Yes, I wanted his
help. But I was going to be damned if I
was going to ask him for it. And the
first thing that came to my mind was some kind of cutting retort, on the order
of “Not if you’re just going to throw it in my face later!”
But I stowed that. I
looked at him, for too long, I guess, as I tried to form some words that were
not cutting or nasty.
“I was just getting ready to haul these things out of the
way…”
“I can help if you want.”
“Sure. That would be
nice.”
And so it went for the rest of the afternoon. The two of us actually making an effort to be
civil to one another. Choosing neutral
words over emotionally-charged ones.
Sharing ideas and brainstorming together, instead of copping that “my
way or the highway” attitude which has lately become our go-to philosophy.
It was nice. It was
peaceful. And it went a long way toward
rearranging the scattered bits of my marriage back into something I could
understand and live with again. I had
begun to think that would never happen, and I couldn’t really figure out how I
was going to go forward with things as hopelessly mangled as they seemed. An air of forgiveness presided over us all
day, and I believe with all my heart that the Almighty ministered to us through
the power of Pelican.
Because I remembered to ask.
So, yeah…I’m doing a lot of tripping and falling, searching
and questioning along this spiritual path to which I’ve been called. But I’m learning. Slowly but surely.
And I’m grateful.
I've been talking a lot recently to friends about the issues of 30+ year marriages. Maybe it's a point where all of us start thinking "what the hell?" A test of psychological and emotional stamina to be sure.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to hear that your request was answered...that you had a decent and productive day.