First Responder's Wife

I am the wife of a first responder.

Our marriage has been swamped by every flood and hurricane and hit by every tornado, for more than 20 years. It is hanging on by a thread. The time we're going to be together is always just beyond the next crisis. 

We were on a pontoon boat in Oklahoma the morning of the 4th of July. On board: a distant man working on vacation, a teenage boy who speaks little (and with sarcasm when he does), and a woman's heart throbbing with hope and wild expectation that the time had finally come.

But no. 

There are details and conversations that don't change this one-time-too-many, and she broke.

I broke. 

My sons, Dad and stepmom, brothers and sister, in-laws, nieces and nephews, and their boyfriends and girlfriends all saw it. 

I sobbed off and on for hours and was unapproachable in between.

What is wrong with her?!?!

They suspect grief from losing my mom and mother-in-law in the past year, my son being away in the Marine Corps when he was supposed to be home on leave, hormones, or maybe an undiagnosed medical problem??????

They cannot see that hope deferred makes a heart sick, the way the conversation goes round-and-round, and where a woman's feelings find no place to go or land.

Logic stands opposed to any such display of feelings. It spreads its arms wide to keep us apart. Like a referee in a boxing ring. 

Not to keep us from killing each other. Just to make sure we don't get tangled up in any form of understanding or intimacy that lasts too long.

My husband and others are tempted to believe if I just had less feelings, more love, and more logic, my marriage would be thriving, instead of on the rocks.

Sensibility could politely excuse unnecessary (and embarrassing) spiraling and command every situation with great composure, dignity, and self-respect. 

Of course "he can't help it." Look at all of the good they're doing. This can't possibly be the time to think about yourself. 

And of course it can't. How barbaric and selfish can a woman be? 

I wish my overwheming pride around their exhaustive training, courage, and honorable work, and in the people who are doing it, and horror and grief at the suffering and mind-numbing loss of life would displace the newness and the oldness of 20 years of going it alone. 

I wish it did. 

It reminds me of a hospice patient we had once. She felt so bad and ashamed she couldn't stop wondering if those ugly bumps on her hands were cancer after the war in the Ukraine broke out.

So we move forward, in silence. Separately bewildered, bemoaning, and grieving what has happened to the innocent, and grateful he has to go to work as soon as we get home.

The time apart seems to be the only way we can stay together. 

And so I pray. For me. My husband. All first responders, their spouses and families, and all whom they are serving - where the real problems are. 

(Pic taken after spontaneous visit to church to pray for all of the above)

Beach Surprises

My home state, land-locked Kansas, probably helps the ocean affect me the way it does. 

It reminds me how much I love quiet because it is never quiet, and it makes my body feel small but not my mind. I find things where I don't expect them and the other way around.

How does a mighty ocean require no container and stay within its bounds? Pools, ponds, and lakes seem to require far more. 

How can a ship seem big - in the ocean? And how can you still almost not see it/them?  (Zoom in!) Begs the question of what else I am missing, albeit a little closer to home.

None of my business, except I happened to be hanging out on our rented porch. A man followed a woman around with a camera in one hand and a baby carrier in the crook of his arm. She walked away and back again, along the shore, into the water, looked back over her shoulder, sat down, stood up, bent her knee, put her hands on her hip, and on and on for what seemed like a really.long.time. My arm was getting tired for that guy. 

Probably a fleeting and unbidden moment of solidarity, but I never want to ask someone to take my picture again. 

Okay, last thing - Christmas trees! So much joy for the many who celebrate - with all of the wonder lights, presents, and tucked-away cats can bring... 

But that's not all. Another noble task awaits.

Thank you, Christmas trees. I want to take a page out of your book. (Sorry, very insensitive to reference paper. But thank you for that, too.) 

May being useful in death lessen the sting for us when it is our turn. Certainly, we'll be more generous.

 

Emotionally Hungry

Sometimes, it's like you're starving. But you don't know you're starving because you've never really been hungry for more than a few hours at a time. And yet, emotional hunger is hunger too. 

It would hardly be worth mentioning if it only lasted for days, much less hours. But it can persist for years and quite insidiously, unrecognized!

All you know is that others are feasting, and you are not okay. But, not to worry. The ones you love most are there and will think of you when the feast is over. Rest assured, they will phone before they turn in and call it a night. 

You learn that waiting for calls to come after the feasting is especially bad for you, because you imagine the feasting the whole time you are waiting for the phone to ring, while you are so hungry yourself. So you give instructions that calling earlier is better, so sleep can come sooner - if one is lucky enough to sleep.

On a good day, you can answer. But you're quieter and more withdrawn than usual. You don't need to look at your knuckles to know. White-knuckling has been the best description of the whole damn thing for as long as you can remember, even though it doesn't actually describe anything at all. 

You muster some willpower, hoping it will be enough to pass for normal, as you recount honorable mentions from the day and press on your stomach to muffle the hunger pangs. Whatever it takes to patch through to the next day and the next, so it can be "over with," and you can recover. 

Settle back into some semblance of normalcy when all becomes familiar again. A normal work week is proof that no real harm was incurred. When the pit in your stomach subsides, you know all is well. Normal operations can resume. Crisis averted.

Recovery becomes a series of unsatisfactory conversations about better timing of phone calls, what information to give, how it never seems to be just right, trying to explain why you want to know about every-little-thing they ate, and what time would be better for a starving person to talk about a feast they aren't invited to? 

All of this, instead of penetrating the mystery of how one got so hungry in the first place or what one might need to feel less hungry and desperate as an uninvited guest...

But you take all of the responsibility for your brokenness and being disagreeable, and vow to work harder to sound normal on the phone and solve the problem of your hunger and reactivity, all while being completely unable to convey how much starving compounds this problem for you. 

Ironically, in your complicity, you feed the very idea that starves you: This is all your fault, and it shouldn't be this hard. 

You agree that it shouldn't. The solution seems simple enough, but not simple enough to be solved. Just simple enough to be repeated. For decades.

By some miracle, you and I found another person who had experienced and studied emotional hunger so thoroughly and knew it so intimately, that she forged a pathway through it to the other side. While she said many, many things, albeit few of the words here, this is what I heard:

Emotional hunger doesn't take an inordinate amount of food to be satiated. A consistent, dependable source, with even a modest amount of nourishment, is plenty to meet the need. Don't give up. Discover what you need, go to the source, and here is how...step-by-step. 

May God be with us as we hunger, learn, adapt, and persevere. Amen.

**This post is a reflection and dramatization of my lived experience relating to a profound need for emotional connection and struggle when that need is unmet, as well as the importance of communication, relational dynamics, attachment styles/wounds/core beliefs, and personal responsibility.

There is another side, and I am traveling to it. I am waiting on the little piece of paper (Licensed Professional Counselor - Associate) that makes me an official travel guide. It won't be long now. I hope and plan to take as many people as I am able to the other side - where needs are explored, known, met, and understood. If I can be of help to you, please let me know.

If you are interested in learning more about the "person who experienced and studied emotional hunger so thoroughly," it is my privilege to introduce you to Thais Gibson and her Personal Development School...an easy-to-approach (as well as digest) treatment on attachment styles, fears, needs and a pathway to healing, all borne out of her own suffering.

Personal Development | Attachment Styles | The Personal Development School