twenty

Last week.. actually it’s almost two weeks now.. we had our twentieth wedding anniversary. This makes me happy. Of course.

Sometimes people say it’s something to feel proud of. Making a relationship work for that long and still missing each other during the day and still wanting to fuck and stuff like that. They’re like, you must have worked hard to do that. And I’m like.. well… no.

It’s easy.

Being married to Daniel is the easiest thing in the world. Being happy with him, wanting to make him happy, wanting it so much that it is easy to put aside other things I might want is not something that takes an effort to do. Making him happy makes me happy. When people talk about having to work to achieve this, it doesn’t seem like how my life is. Aren’t the “other things” meant to fade away when compared to your spouse’s wants and needs? If they don’t come first and you have to force it, why persist with the relationship? Is this part of the reason why so many places have such high rates of separation and divorce?

It isn’t that we never disagree about things or have different preferences. We do. It’s just that it’s rare that we might have different views and it is a super high priority for both of us. If something matters more to him than it does me, then it’s easy for me to let go of what I wanted and he is the same. Sometimes I do do things that don’t feel instinctively natural, like offering to give him a Creme Egg. Sometimes he will take it and say thankyou and sometimes he says it’s ok and I should keep it for myself. Sometimes I cut up onion for him.

Where I run into problems is when what I want to be able to give him does not match up with what I have the ability to give him. I want to give him everything. The world. All of the most interesting and exciting things there are to see and do. But not even all of those things that aren’t even realistic for most people. But maybe the luxury of a car with decent air-conditioning and a stereo that works properly. Of not having to feel bad when your glasses are going to cost a few hundred dollars. Something he has been interested in doing for ages is getting a motorbike license but the course to learn has always been too much. I would love to be able to pay for the course for him as a surprise for his birthday or something like that. Like this year would be especially good because he’s turning 40 and it could be his midlife crisis, right on time. As it is he will probably have to go without one because we can’t afford it.

He doesn’t complain about these things. He doesn’t ask more of me than I am able to give. He actually encourages me to take it easy and rest more than I am likely to do by myself. I apologise sometimes for not having managed to do a particular thing on a particular day and he tells me not to worry about it. And I am so glad that he doesn’t worry about it and doesn’t feel resentful or ripped off at what I can’t manage. But I do feel that. It’s not just material things. Sometimes I would like to be all kinky and throw him down and do unspeakable things to him and be the boss and whatever… but five minutes in and my body is saying ouch. Or he wanted to go to a boating and fishing show and I said I would go with him and he said he thought it would be a lot and I said I’ll do it anyway because you want to go, but then he said it’s at like [wherever] and I realised that it really was a gigantic place and I probably could not actually do that. It is hard not to resent the things that I have to give up on and let go of because of this stupid condition. When it means that he is also giving up on things, it’s almost unbearable.

But somehow he doesn’t seem to be bothered by that. He says he just wants me. And that’s where I have a problem understanding, because I don’t know what is so good about me. There are the obvious reasons, of course, with baggage and being conditioned to believe that I was a pathetic excuse for a normal human being and that is a big factor. But even logically putting that aside I recognise that there is nothing special. There are lots of people that share some of the same traits that I do that are what I think make me a decent person. Some of them even aren’t crazy or fibro’d.

But then I think about it the other way around. If he was the one with fibro or anything else, I would do all I could to ease things for him. And I wouldn’t be mad about it because it would feel worse to know he was hurting and not do anything about it. And he is a good person and has lots of good qualities but so do lots of other people. But none of them appeal to me. So what is it?

Je ne sais quoi.

No one else is him. It is intangible, it is something I feel in my heart and my soul and in my breath and dreams and through other dimensions and lives. And knowing and feeling that means that even though I don’t fully understand it, I can believe that he wants me because no one else is me.

twenty

i believe

i lay.

i am facing my husband.

my hand rests on his chest, over his heart, and he holds my hand in place with his own.

my skin is damp, and the breeze from the rainy weather outside is cooling and refreshing.

my heartbeats and my breaths are accelerated, but slowing,

and i hear the sounds of cars passing on the wet roads

and daniel’s soft almost-snores as he dozes

and I wonder yet again at how magnificently unlikely

and stunningly divine this scene is.

a baby boy is born in copenhagen in november 1979.

almost a year later in november 1980, a baby girl is born in melbourne.

they are not even learning to speak the same language,

and even if they did, international telephone calls are still an uncommon and expensive thing.

the technology that would one day evolve into the modern internet is at the same infant stage of development that the danish boy and australian girl are.

how could you see these two babies, and ever imagine that enough changes would happen in the world for them to find each other? for it to be relatively easy and cheap for them to communicate with each other daily, from home, and get to know each other well enough that they could fall in love?

for a lot of people, the marvels of modern technology are a cool development that provides a lot of opportunities to enrich their life. for us, the marvels of modern technology are but one of a series of events that were crucial for us to end up where we are, now.

to consider the relative probability that any of those events would happen — that all of people involved were in the right place at the right time with the right ideas and skills and resources — let alone that all of them did happen, seems like we have played a lottery with astronomical chances of success.. and won, an embarrassment of riches.

it makes me believe.

it’s not god in the christian sense, or even god in that i see it as a deity, discrete and apart from what we are.

but i can’t feel the beating of his heart and of my own heart and not believe that something, somewhere, guided us to each other.

i believe

biggest risk, greatest reward

The scariest, most terrifying thing I have ever done was agreeing to meet a person I met online who lived on the opposite side of the world. And knowing that it would be so difficult, so paralysing because of the nervous fear and hope and anticipation and awkward and surreality, we had agreed to start with the small, simple action of taking each other’s hand. Somehow I overcame that paralysis and a moment later, my clammy, sweaty hand was clasped in his clammy, sweaty hand.

That was 18 years ago. I was 17. Some time in the last year, the part of my life before he took my hand became shorter than the part of my life since that moment. And that feels good.

biggest risk, greatest reward

they don’t care

The other afternoon, Abigail and I were going to the park and at the end of the road near our house, there were a group of children playing on the road. They were completely oblivious and didn’t get out of the way until the car was almost right up to them. (I was going plenty slow so I didn’t hit them.) As they took their time getting out of the way I made some rude comments about it being a road, for cars, and how they shouldn’t be there.
Abigail said, “They don’t care.”
And I said, “Well, their parents should!”
“That’s what I mean,” she said. “Their parents don’t care if they play on the road.”

I’ve had this anecdote related to me a couple of times. My dad was a police officer. Apparently if he ever pulled over families in cars and the children weren’t wearing seat belts, instead of just telling the adults off and fining them, he took a somewhat different approach, which was probably quite effective but also probably not very officially approved of.
It would begin with an enquiry to the family about whether or not these parents loved their children. Invariably they confirmed that of course they loved their children, only for him to then challenge the logic of parents who claim to love their children but in fact do not care enough to take the simple measure of making sure they wear their seatbelts so as to reduce the risk to them in case of an accident.
It’s not really an argument that you can come up with a good response to; and much more effective than simply issuing a fine is knowing that every time in the future that you allow your kids to go without a seatbelt, they are going to be thinking about the day that a police man – a trustworthy authority figure – told them that you didn’t love them enough to do something for them that could be the difference between life and death.

Perhaps those kids playing on the road just need a police person to come and ask their parents why they want their children to be hit by a car. Because surely if they didn’t want that to happen, they wouldn’t allow their children to use the road as a recreational facility.

they don’t care

just dumping

hello

i’m feeling a little… tight in the chest this morning. anxious, i guess. scared. hopeless. the usual.

i don’t know if it’s me… actually, it is me, but what i mean is i don’t know if it’s part of me inherently or if it’s behaviour that was conditioned into me after years of being told and shown when i was young.. that everything i do is wrong and everything wrong is my fault. and i do try really hard to remind myself that it isn’t true but sometimes the devil voice is a bit louder than the angel voice. and that’s when i feel a desperate need for your voice.. your actions that are louder than words, louder than all the other voices. your hands and your lips and your other parts, telling me with every touch and every groan that i’m not wrong and that i am worthy. and i can believe you because i trust you and i believe, inside me, deeper than the parts of me that are affected by the bumps and challenges of life and the complexities of neurotransmitters and hormones.. i believe that you could only touch me and love me like you do if i was something wonderful. and because you do touch me and love me i believe it, a little bit. enough to smooth over those bumps and balance the chemicals in my brain and my body, for a while, at least.

sometimes. or maybe a lot of times.. i am my own worst enemy. or maybe all the times. because what is wrong with me is what makes it so very hard to ask for what i need. on a good day, i can do that.. show you, tell you, that i want – need – to be joined to you, to show you that i think you’re amazing and beautiful and strong and brave and gentle and loving and hope that you feel that and know it, and know that i will feel that back from you. and that helps to keep me having more good days, it keeps me steady and i take less steps backwards than i do forwards. but on a bad day, when i have struggled and fought with my own mind about doing the things i must do, when i am tired at the end of a day and so exhausted from the battle.. when i most need you to hold me and remind and reassure me that you are with me, part of me, always ready to catch me if i stumble.. i have no energy left to tell you that i am stumbling.

i didnt actually mean for this to be depressing. i wanted you to know that.. that while i am having a bad head day, i keep trying because of you. because i want to be better for you, because you show me that i am worth it. and i am so grateful and thankful for you, even when i really don’t understand sometimes how you can put up with a person as flawed and broken as me. i hope that when i am the real me, not pulled down by my demons; when i am silly and hippy and witty and flirty and optimistic and naive.. i hope that i show you strongly and loudly enough how much i love you and how happy i am to share my life with you. how important you are. my air, my water, my sunlight, my daniel.

i love you.
jeg elsker dig.

just dumping