Saturday, February 24, 2007
ramblings from the word file where my posts are born
If you’ve never had someone believe in you it can be hard to accept. If you’ve never fully realized how MuCh someone believes in you, it can make you feel like a real heel when you finally see clearly.
I’m forever amazed at how he believes in me. I’m forever feeling like a real heel for not fully appreciating his love for me. Sometimes I wonder if I could ever love him enough. His heart seems boundless … his capacity to love so great that words escape me. And all this love is there for me. How could I possibly love him enough?
Just days ago I watched him cry. I’ve seen this before and it crushes my soul every time. It’s not just that he is aching that crushes me. It’s in the recognition of that depth of heart … recognition I fail to make daily. He stood there, stroking our cat as she slowly made her way from our world to the next and the tears ran down. He let our children see his pain because, unlike when they lost their dog a few years ago, they are able to wrap their heads around the permanence of death. They are better able to approach that wave of grief and say: “It will wash over me. It will not consume me.” These are the first sojourns in an incredibly difficult portion of the human journey. We want them to feel it so they can learn how to deal with it. He sits there, with his heart open, letting them see a part of it they have never known. Finding out that Dad cries is a big deal to any kid. And of this my husband is not afraid.
But today he showed me even more. He has always believed in me … more than I have ever ever EvEr believed in myself. And he believes in these ideas I’ve been working to make concrete, touchable, marketable somethings. If only I could be the strong one for him … just once … maybe I’d feel I’m somehow pulling my weight.
How unappealing an unconfident spouse must be. The negativity. The neediness. The constant, relentless task of re-assuring me must make him weary through to the marrow. Then there’s the way a lack of confidence affects body image, sex drive. The depression moves in and out. The mood swings shake the house. The turbulence of peri-menapause and dark clouds of PMS do little to even out an already wild flight. And yet he holds me. Reassures me. Loves me more than I can imagine. He wants me, which is something I can’t understand. I’ll put something “special” on and make the mistake of looking in the mirror. “How on Earth is tHiS what he wants to see tonight?” And he takes the controls, and he steadies the course, and together we reach new heights.
What have I done to deserve this? And how can I repay him? Maybe I could try even harder to quiet the voices of self-hatred and self-doubt. He’d be the first to tell you his is one of the loudest voices you’ll ever hear! Perhaps, if I keep trying, I can allow his voice to drown the others. And maybe let his image of me wash away what I see in the mirror. Would that be enough to show him how much I love him? I mean, really, how do you ever say thank you to someone for being your partner this half a lifetime? And how do I thank him for sticking around for Act II?
He believes in me. How lucky am I?
And I’ve always always AlWaYs believed in US.
Ideas. Fantasies. The reality of my kids’ world. My head gets to jumbling and I never get to typing. The excuses are becoming lame, and I need to start wringing it out of myself again. Then I make another excuse not to type and another day goes by.
I’ve had lots of ideas these past years since I quit working fulltime. Ideas about making money. Ideas about creating things for people. Ideas about what makes a good parent and whether I am one. Ideas about faith, religion, war, struggle, hunger, death. They are ideas, intangible uncapturable misty dementors that torment my spirit whether it’s guilt for not acting on them or guilt for letting the kids watch TV so I can try to mold the mist into a more manifest creation.
Mist.
I’ll ramble tonight because there is just too much mist. I’ve been busy these first weeks trying to stick to my resolutions … keep working out … keep creating … take ideas X, Y and Z and make them real. “They are good ideas, you just lack discipline!” I keep telling myself as mist of new ideas closes in, trying to distract me from completing a task. “Keep going.” And so one idea has found new life as something I can touch, review, show others. But this is not enough.
Mists of life roll in, pull me away from my endeavors. There are friends who have needed a shoulder and more these past months. It is too much.
It is too much to accept that there truly are bad people in the world.
It is too much to accept that selfishness can guide a life and that, quite often in our country, people are never made to understand that the way they treat others is unacceptable.
It is too much to watch my daughter’s heart break as I try to help her understand her beloved kitty is dying, right there before her eyes. How do you explain kidney failure to a sobbing 8-year-old?
It’s been too much. And so I’ve typed but haven’t clicked publish. And so I’ve read but been silent. And so I’ve avoided my real questions. Through the years I’ve learned I excel at stuffing things down, shoving them to the side, stepping over them … AVOIDING what I am truly struggling with. And then I find something like what I wrote about my husband one day and I realize I’m not so good at avoiding at all. I take it out on those I love the most. And this realization is just too much.
My family is safe and strong and I am well, but the muse has been silenced these past months. Too much real life, too much I've wanted to provide for family and friends, too much that I didn’t feel like dealing with, really, or explaining. But the longer days and Spring-like rains are tickling my spirit. And kind words left here are summoning the muse. Thank you.
