The strange thing about all this is that time is at a standstill for my family. There is less oxygen in the air. We’re in an uncomfortable holding pattern. Everyone else goes on with their lives- they write about the funny things they’re doing on Twitter, they gush about their boyfriends buying engagement rings on Facebook (side note: this is the worst time of year to have marriage trouble. Literally every unmarried girl is getting engaged, I think, and each of them with 10 carat rings.) , and all of them seem to have such glittering futures. Meanwhile, Sky and I text each other using a kind of conversation we’ve become proficient in- the guarded, slight hope, the statements that begin “if we don’t stay together” or “if we’re still married”. We make plans, but they hinge on those statements. Both of us lack any kind of concreteness to our words. There is so much caution and uncertainty.
My step father tried to hand me an index card a couple nights ago. I was instructed to make a Christmas list and put five things on it that I want. What do you write when you want nothing, but you want so much?
1. My marriage instantly mended.
2. That all the pain of the past year could turn out to not be real.
3. To feel certain my husband loves me. To not have so much doubt that he did before.
4. Assurance that the future will be good- nothing like this ever again.
5. Total comfort with him. Total faith in him. One million percent trust.
I let him keep a blank list. I don’t have enough words to describe what I want to find in my stocking. Maybe this Christmas Eve, I will sit up next to the tree until midnight, and wait to see if Santa Claus sneaks into the room. Most other years, I could ask him for that Cadillac or something beautiful in a tiny blue box from Tiffany’s. But this time, I need much, much more.
2 kind comments from you:
#1: I'm not getting engaged. (huge smile) So....I'm one of that unmarried list who's doing such a thing. Not that I don't want to, but... (p.s., I prefer plain white gold or stainless steel for rings. I'm not a lover of glitz. I seriously do NOT need or want a stone.)
#2: Next fall, my best friend is getting married. (cue my booohoooo's. she didn't even go through a time of *wanting* guy! she's a homebody type and didn't care about marriage and that stuff EVER before he came along! i have mixed feelings. :\) She got engaged literally a month after her older sister, and they're 20 and 23 years old. I think I'm going to have a breakdown after both their weddings are done. Her older sis is getting married Jan 1.
#3: Um...your list made me tear up.
I'm blasting this song....and just....I don't know. Trying to rest my mind in the reality of those lyrics?? In the pain and challenge and suckiness of life but the surety of His goodness in the end... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbPzp8KPxoo
The hardest thing I've had to learn in the last 2 years is that it's ok to not be ok. As females we like to fix everything - at least from the outside looking in. Sometimes, you just gotta let that shit fall apart so you can sit down and cry for a awhile and figure out how on earth to put it back together, again. It's funny, though, when you do start putting it back together. Things don't fit in the same places as they use to...and some don't fit at all. But, somehow you're ok with that.
Right now. Just be not ok. May be the best gift you give yourself, ever.
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