Life should not be a journey to the grave, with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW! What a Ride!
ANOTHER ROUGH DAY
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I sweated going to Bruce's last night, but not so much that I wouldn't go. It felt like an eternity since we'd even seen each other, and I had to keep reminding myself I'd dropped in during the week. Bruce said it was because the week, just seven days, had been so emotionally grueling, and he was right. Whatever the reason, it was hard for me not to be touching him. We'd talk for a bit, busy ourselves with computers or cooking, and then love together like metal to magnet, just to wrap our arms around each other, kiss again, reassure ourselves we were really together.
We made a trip to Safeway, to pick up a few things we needed to add to the spaghetti dinner Bruce already had simmering on the stove. We watched TIVO-saved programs. We made wild, intense love, joining bodies and souls.
And in the morning, I got up and dressed, telling Bruce I had to be in Milwaukie by ten.
See, RC and I had breakfast plans. I thought. I thought we'd agreed we were going to go to brunch before I went to my dance practice. Silly me.
Actually, RC wasn't speaking to me. He didn't want to be in the same room with me. He wasn't hungry, he said, so I went about getting into a skirt, tee, and tights. I still thought we would go out to breakfast. It got more and more obvious that we weren't only not going out, we weren't going to eat breakfast together at home, either.
RC said he was going to fix his breakfast. I said if I fixed it, then I'd fix mine at the same time. "You can fix yours whenever you want," he said. I don't know why I'm even going into this, except that it's one of the ways RC has to "punish" me, not letting me fix his breakfast, not wanting to eat with me. RC had some things to say, chief among them that if I went to Bruce's and wanted RC to have anything to do with me after that, then I would have to shower and brush my teeth first, and I lost my temper and said some stuff I don't even remember. I do remember slamming a cabinet door shut. I poured a cup of coffee and stomped my way downstairs.
After a while, I came back upstairs and sat down at the table, across from RC. I told him, "I lost my temper. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that." And that's the plain truth. It doesn't matter what he was saying. It was wrong of me to lose my temper.
Then the real talk began. I think I will just list the things I told him:
- Not allowing himself to learn to forgive hurts him, and nobody else. It hurts his spirit.
- He was putting me in the position of choosing between two men I loved, without considering what that might do to me.
- Life is about forgiving people, and if we don't do that, we will soon have no one. His kids, his mom, all his friends, myself--every single one of them has hurt him at one time or another, and if he throws people away for that, he will be all alone, and might as well call it quits and die.
- His behaviour when I come home from seeing Bruce was punishing to me, whether he sees it that way or not.
- He has a mental disease, and he needs to talk to his doctor about his meds level, because it doesn't appear to me his depressions are being well-controlled.
RC wanted to know how I expected him to act, and I told him I expected him to act just the way he expected me to when he went out with other women. I reminded him of the early days of our early marriage, how he would blow up at me if he even imagined that I were putting off negative vibes. I told him I would never dare treat him the way he treated me, ever. I told him he was treating me like I was filthy, when he himself had risked bringing home actual disease. "You've been with nymphomaniacs," I said. "You even dated a former prostitute for a while, and I never told you to take a shower when you got home. I wouldn't have dared!"
When I mentioned his depressions, and mental illness, he said he was still deeply affected by Marshall's death. I hadn't realized it was still so bad for him, but I told him that was even more reason to adjust his meds, and that we really should have done that, probably, soon after the baby's death.
RC says I'm a Jekyll and Hyde person, that one minute I could be cutting and accusatory, and the next minute calm and contrite. I didn't deny it. I know my tongue can wound. Then he said I was just like my dad that way.
"No. I am just like my mother," I said. I gave him a little insight into my childhood.
My Mama is a dear, sweet, lady. Like me, though, she has a long fuse that burns down to a real hot temper. As a kid, mostly as a teen (don't they just drive us wild?), I could get under Mom's skin without even trying. I have a vivid memory of Mom getting me by the hair above my ears and banging my head against a wall. (Isn't it funny? I don't remember that it hurt, but I do remember being shocked!) I have another memory of this little bitty woman backing me into a corner and slapping my face. "Whadya want for Christmas?!" she'd snarl, and I'd fire back, "Nothing!" and she'd slap my face and ask me again. "Whadya want for Christmas?!" (Hmm. Don't remember how we got out of that particular spot, either. I did get Christmas presents, lol.)
I cried, telling RC those things, but sitting here typing them, I'm chuckling. Guess there must be some residual hurt there, but mostly, I just shake my head. Yup. That was my mama. Glad she grew out of it.
Sad to say, until I learned the cause of my own inner rage, I used to lash out at my kids pretty badly, too. I think, though, that therapy got me beyond that by the time the oldest was maybe twelve. Still, I'm sorry they had to endure it from me, and proud beyond words that they are all so gentle and loving with their own children.
At the end of our talk we were both pretty well drained, but we did literally kiss and hug and make up, and tell each other we love each other.
I'm still feeling my way as regards Bruce, though. We may have to go underground for a while, at least some of the time. God, I do not want to do that. I just want RC to calm down and remember that he actually likes Bruce.
Is that really too much to ask?
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