A Break in the Clouds

Yesterday was a bad day. Amid all of my crying and blogging and reading and researching....there was real life....and it wasn't cooperating. The Princess was in a particularly foul mood, the boys were crying (because I forgot to pick them up and it was pouring rain), and my husband wasn't NOT speaking to me...but he wasn't really speaking to me.

At one point, I picked up the dog...wanting...needing something warm and affectionate...something living to stabilize my waves of emotion....and the dog whimpered until it got away only to resume its previous spot just out of my reach.

I felt like it was a metaphor for my life...the dog abandoning me at my time of greatest need. I had another panic attack and cried out for God to make me feel better.

The evening was silent and miserable. My husband came home exactly on time and retreated to the basement where he has been hiding out. He didn't look at me. I made excuses to go down there....to be in the right position for him to start talking to me. He didn't. I went to bed. I cried. I read. I watched a movie. I went to sleep. And I had nightmares again.

I woke up just as miserable. The nightmares did nothing to help calm me down. I had a frustrating morning getting the boys ready for school. I was angry. I was frustrated. I was curled up in a ball on the bed weeping silently. My husband walked into the room and into the bathroom without looking at me. He showered and dressed in the bathroom. He left. I was devastated.

I decided to read some more of a blog that I had discovered last night. It's here. I went back to her first posts and started reading. She is amazing. Her words are amazing. She has a much better attitude and perspective than I have. So this morning, as I was laying in bed, crying, the boys were on track to be late for school, the Princess was angry that she could no longer wear her favorite PJ pants....and my husband was sitting in the living room waiting for the bus to show up and take him to work....that's when I read this post. And something really struck me:

"God doesn't take away our fears and doubts and anger [and self-pity], we must choose to give them up.   And in the process we make room for the peace we were after all along...the Peace that was already there."

 

How much of my sadness was I choosing? How much of my bad day and night and morning were a direct result of my choosing to wallow? And why should I choose to wallow when I can do something about it?

I didn't want to be sad anymore. And waiting for my husband to do something about that is a waste of time. This is MY marriage. And so I needed to do something about it.

So I got out of bed. I got dressed. I went into the living room and started giving orders. I would be giving my husband a ride to work. I would be giving the boys a ride to school. And the Princess would get to wear her beloved jacket and a pretty princess dress. And that was the end of it.

 

After we had dropped off the boys, my husband asked why I wanted to give him a ride. I told him that I was sad and lonely and I didn't want to feel that way anymore. I told him that if he wasn't going to talk to me at home at least he could not talk to me while we sat in a car in the middle of rush hour traffic.

 

And so we talked.

 

I cried. 

 

He cried a little.

 

He told me about learning to hide and lie about things as a child to avoid shame. I asked questions that he didn't really want to answer. He told me things I didn't really want to ask about. But it was good. He said he was lonely, too....that he missed me. He told me he thought I wanted space. He asked if he needed to sleep on the couch downstairs anymore. I said that I had never asked him to. He said he did it because he thought I would want him to. I said that I knew why he did it.

 

I told him about my fears and why I was sad. I told him I loved him and that I wasn't angry with him....that he was forgiven. I told him about my lack of trust and he didn't argue. I apologized because I knew that telling him these things would hurt him.

 

We had a good day. He skipped work and spent it with me and we talked more. We went to Ikea and Hobby Lobby and Fiiz (because obviously my diet has been annihilated for this week).

 

I'm still scared. And I know that there will be hard times ahead for us. But today was a good day. And I need to learn to be grateful for the good days.

 

Today the dog is cuddled up against my leg. It's still a metaphor...because it's a step. He's no longer out of reach. It's not everything....but its something....and I'll take it.