I'm honestly not sure what the blog protocol is here, but I am going to re-post another blogger's work. I'm not taking credit for it. It's just that a link would not be enough.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carrie-cariello/this-is-marriage_b_4661093.html
This Is Marriage
Right now I'm sitting in a hospital.
I am waiting for my husband, Joe. He is gowned and unconscious,
undergoing a surgery called a discectomy, where they cut a teeny tiny
hole in his lower back and shave away the bulging disc that's been
infringing on his sciatic nerve for five months.
This bulging disc has likely been in progress for years -- decades,
even. Years of poor posture and carrying toddlers and stacking wood has
contributed to the slow pop of an unhappy disc. And finally, a heavy
deadlift at Crossfit was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's
back.
About an hour ago I watched while Joe undressed and put on his pale
blue hospital gown. I watched him kick off the new brown shoes I made
him buy during a recent trip to the outlets, so I could get a pair of
orange suede heels half off.
Dressed in light blue scrubs, the surgeon popped into the room just
as Joe settled into the hospital bed. The two of them started to go over
the procedure, to talk about how Joe would not breathe on his own
during the two-hour surgery. I focused my gaze on the toe of his brown
shoe sticking out of the shiny bag.
And I thought; this is marriage. One day you're shopping for shoes at
the outlets and just a few weeks later, the new shoes your husband
reluctantly bought for himself will sit, discarded, in a room down the
hall while someone else breathes for him.
I write a lot about raising our five kids and our son Jack's
autism
and teamwork and blah blah blah-dey blah. But the truth is, some days
this marriage is so hard. It is so hard I can barely breathe. No one --
and I do mean no one -- makes me as angry, as frustrated, as enraged, as
this man does.
The biggest argument we've ever had -- and believe me, we've had some
doozies -- was over Oreos. Yes, you read that right: the biggest fight
I've ever had with my husband was over a chocolate wafer cookie. (To be
fair, they were double-stuffed, and I think that ups the ante a bit.)
We'd been married less than a year, and I had to go to a dinner for
work. It was incredibly boring, and I spent most of the long evening
nodding my head and looking forward to going home, climbing into my
pajamas, and eating a few cookies before bed.
I walked into our apartment just in time to see Joe holding the empty
blue cellophane bag -- plastic cookie divider cast aside on the floor
-- and shaking the last of the chocolate crumbs into his mouth.
I was outraged. How selfish! How greedy and thoughtless and
disgusting. Before long, the argument took on a life of its own,
launching itself from a Nabisco product to everything that was wrong
with us as a couple. You never think about anyone but yourself! You
overreact to everything!
We didn't speak for days.
In the middle of huge arguments like 'The Great Oreo Fight,' I often
have the sensation I am teetering on the edge of a large abyss, that Joe
and I are separated by the deepest chasm. Married, yes. But also so
very alone.
I know divorce. I've personally experienced three divorces, not one
of which has been my own. I am not afraid of divorce. But somehow, thus
far, Joe and I have always managed to cross the gulf that separates us.
To buy a new bag of Oreos and move on.
This is marriage. It is standing on the edge of the abyss and saying, I choose to stay. Today, I will stay.
As Joe's leg pain worsened and two cortisone shots did nothing to
help the inflammation, to relieve the pressure on his aggravated nerve,
it became clear that surgery was the next step.
Once he explained the recovery to me -- no lifting anything heavier
than a gallon of milk for six weeks, no driving for two, no twisting or
bending -- I developed a plan for him. He would go to his parents for at
least a week, where he could rest and recuperate without a 55-pound
four-year old launching at him like a cannonball. When he came home I
would drive him back and forth to work.
But Joe didn't want this. He didn't want to go to his parents for
that long and he didn't want me driving him around and in general he
didn't want me to be the boss of him. It was infuriating.
I confided in Jack's psychologist when we met to talk about his
anxiety over fire drills, figuring she would take my side. She didn't.
Instead she said, "I hear fear in your voice. So why do you go
straight to anger? Stay with the fear a moment. Let yourself feel it."
Sitting on her light brown couch with a giant Elmo peering over my shoulder, I did. I let myself feel my fear.
For the first time since June, I talked about how scared I was to see
Joe's health decline, to see him wait ten minutes before getting out of
the car. I wept describing how he struggled to toss the football with
the boys and twirl our daughter Rose in the air.
How terrifying it is to see the strongest man I know falter.
This is marriage.
A few years ago I got up in the middle of the night for some water. I
walked towards the door as Joe came out of the bathroom, and when we
passed each other sleepily he reached out his arms and hugged me for a
long moment.
For days afterwards I lived with that moment in my heart and my mind.
I marveled that this person could love me so instinctively, so
thoroughly, to reach out half awake and embrace me without even thinking
about it.
It is this memory I cling to like a life preserver when the storms of
marital rage and frustration sweep over me. This is the Joe I am
thinking of now.
Shifting a little in my hard plastic chair, I go online and look up
Webster-Merriam's definition of marriage. It uses weird words like state
of being united and recognized by law and intimate union.
But to me, it's so much more.
It is sitting in a hospital fifteen years later and realizing it
wasn't about the cookies after all, that I went straight to anger in
order to avoid the really scary thoughts; you don't love me enough and I
have made a mistake and this marriage will never work. To avoid my
fear.
It is finding grace again and again in the small gestures; buying
shoes and eating Oreos and spontaneously embracing in the dark hours of
the night.
It is complicated and raw and tender and long and giddy and miserable
and scary and exhausting and exhilarating and broken and yet whole and I
know this is a lot of adjectives but they're all true.
It is waiting, waiting, waiting for the surgeon in the blue scrubs to
tap me on the shoulder and tell me it all went fine, that within a few
hours my husband will slip on his new brown shoes and walk out of the
door -- sore from surgery, groggy from anesthesia, but free of the live
wire that has electrified his leg for the past five months.
That he is breathing on his own so I don't have to do it alone.
This is marriage.
###
Yesterday, Lester was an hour late coming home from a meeting. He is so reliable and punctual and considerate of me being home alone with the kids that my first thought was that something was wrong.
When I called him and got no answer and then texted him and got no answer, I was certain he had died.
This sounds extreme and ridiculous I know, but you don't know how dependable my husband is.
I bathed the kids and put them all to bed, but inside I was jittery. When I imagined my life without him, the kids' lives without him, OUR lives without him, I actually started shaking. I would be bereft without my friend, my love, the best father to Cary, Dean and Clair ever. I prayed and prayed that he was safe.
When he finally called - his phone was in his checked coat, and his dinner date had extended their meeting unexpectedly - I was so relieved! I nearly cried.
But then I got mad:
I don't care that you were late. I don't care that I had to do the nighttime stuff alone. I DO care that you didn't call when it got late; you know how I worry. Why didn't you have your phone on? You have three kids at home, you have to be reachable. What if I needed you? Why is it so hard for you to keep your phone with you??
I didn't "stay with the fear" because anger felt so much better!
It was shortlived. When Lester came through our front door, all I wanted to do was hold him, and press my face into his coat, which was cold from the night air. But his familiar cheek was warm against mine, and he was home; he was safe. He came back to us so I wouldn't have to do it alone.
This is marriage.
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
