Fear of Abandonment, Continued...

My second-to-last post about Fear of Abandonment was widely read (at least for my stuff), resonating strongly with many of you, and empowering a few.  So, I wanted to check in with you and update you on me.  If you're still standing in it, swimming in it, or sinking in it, I just wanted to let you know that you're not standing, swimming, or sinking alone.  'Cause I am, too.   

It's been a rough couple of weeks.  I could give you a thorough account of the few steps forward and the many steps back, but I want this to be fruitful for us, so I'm fastforwarding.  The latest development for me is a counseling appointment scheduled for next week.  First ever.  I am feeling excited, mad, hopeful, hopeless, and humbled about this.  

Recently, my husband recommended we "table" conversation on this issue.  It didn't feel great at the time, but since then I realized that "tabling" something can be progress.  The verb "table" means "to postpone the consderation of".  When two people are coming from two different places and speaking two different languages about a subject they disagree on, it is nigh impossible to feel like you're accomplishing anything, but insanity. 

In chess, I would call it a stalemate.  No winner.  New game.  If only.  

But, it's not chess.  It's my life and my marriage.  It feels like I'm standing inside the door of my heart and home, with my hand on the doorknob, and tennis shoes on my feet.  Despair is standing on the welcome mat on the other side, peering through the window, waiting to be invited in.  And I want to run.  

Physically, I hate running.  I abhor it.  But, emotionally, I feel like I could run forever. 

I just read "Understanding the Las Vegas Killer", and was intrigued when it said, "He once owned 27 residences in four states...".  And I realized he was a "runner", too.   If I actually ran when I wanted to run, and had money to buy actual places to run to, I shudder to think how disconnected I could be from life in one place and from the people who live there.  Blech.

This is why "tabling" is a good thing.  You can't table something, if you don't come back to discuss it.  It doesn't allow for one-way tickets.  It implies taking more time to work at something that isn't working.  

We love to say "Timing is everything."  If that is true, and I think it is mostly true, in that it is critically important, we need time.  A continuation of time.  Not five minutes, not two weeks, but as much time as it takes to get back to good.  And this is one of the many places my husband is better than I am.  He is good at being a grown-up, and being where he's supposed to be, and doing what he's supposed to do, while I'm listening to a broken record that no one else can hear, and wondering where can I run to?  

So, I think of all of the couples I've met who have been married over fifty years and how many of them say none of their married years could be described as easy.  And I think of one woman, in particular.  She was married to an alchoholic for sixty years.  When I asked her how many of those years she would consider good, she said, "The last ten."  Her husband finally stopped drinking when his grandchildren came on scene.  She and her children learned how to love him in those last ten years, which was a real blessing, because it meant they could miss him when he died.  And they do. 

So, in this case, and in mine, and maybe in yours, it is good that "Nothing stays the same." 

May God and time and change be with us, and may no one sell us a one-way ticket.  Amen.    

      

A Keyhole

I went on a little excursion with the boys today, to check out a new fishing spot one of them keeps talking about.  The fishing spot is a drainage hole that doesn't drain.  But, that doesn't deter boys.

Or the little girl who looked on while they played.  No one talked to her, and with her bike parked alone on the trail, it seemed like she was quite alone.  After she warmed up, she said she liked walking through the water to the other side, because it seemed more dangerous, and she liked showing she was braver than her friends.

This open need to show her bravery and to feel special confirmed my belief that she probably didn't feel special often enough.

But, the conversation rolled on, with some mention of figure skating, and I was secretly glad she had some interest beyond watching other kids play without her.  And then...

She pulled out her phone and showed it to me.  "This is a video of me figure skating."

And her 9-year-old self was stunning.  Flying around the rink in the spotlight that was hers alone, to the music that was hers alone.  This particular performance was just one in a string of performances over the course of five years!  Goodness me!  I'm not sure how I didn't fall out of my chair, but I suspect gravity was just being nice.

I couldn''t have been happier to have gotten her so wrong, and remember how much I love happy surprises.  Like when I looked at this picture I took a second time, and noticed that it looked like a keyhole.  Which was an awesome surprise, because the only thing I saw when I took the picture was my son.  Kind of like when people take pictures and a ghost or something otherworldly shows up later, without the spine crawl.  And I remember how much I love happy surprises.