Category: marriage

Humanity lives beyond phone screens…

Published on by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

Friday evening Chw and I had a hot date to sign some papers and do a small Costco run for a few produce staples. We are completely wild and crazy now that we are empty nesters… The plan had been that I would meet him at 6, at the paper-signing place, which incidentally happened to be located halfway between his work and our home. I spent a good chunk of the day Friday hanging out with a friend, which was lovely. I noticed as the afternoon progressed and the air pressure was getting more intense. (yeah, I’m one of those people with super powers known as chronic illness, and can sense such things.) By the time the clock shown 4:30 I had this pounding headache and I KNEW that it would be unsafe for me to drive. I texted my husband and the following exchange ensued:

M-Hey, My head is all of a sudden killing me. Do you want to reschedule or would you be able to come home and us go together.

C- I’ll come home and pick you up. I love you!

He’s pretty cool like that, right? (Please realize here how stupid I felt asking for such a dumb thing, and how bad I felt that he would have to do so much driving. Although, at the same time, what he was going to do for an hour while he waited for the appointment, I wasn’t sure.)

At 5:05 Chw texted to let me know he was on his way and at 5:15 my headache completely dissipated. I felt like a jerk! It was a very obvious disappearance. I sat still for about 5 minutes wondering if it was really gone, and it was. Since the route he takes home is completely different from the route to our meeting place, calling him and telling him I could make it would have only complicated things. So, instead, I putted around for fifteen minutes taking care of small chores that he usually does, in an effort to make it up to him. (Guilt driven, on my part.) I then decided to wait outside for him so I could just hop in the car and we could head out.

At 5:38 my husband calls me…

Hey, I just nearly hit this guy. He was coming at me so fast, in his car, in the wrong lane. I don’t think he was conscious. He slammed into the pond and I’m not sure what to do.

M- oh my gosh, did you call 911?

C- yes, they’ve been called. His car is sinking but people who live by the pond are telling me not to go in, that it’s not safe. I’m not sure if 911 will get here fast enough.

M- oh my gosh. Why isn’t it safe?

C- It’s pretty gross and there could be glass and stuff in it. You can’t see a thing. Wait, this guy showed up and he’s going in. I’m going in.

M- ok! Where is this pond? (because obviously I wanted to go there.)

C- in our neighborhood. I’m going in.

M- ok. Put the phone down first, I love you! (I said this only because his voice was real jittery and I worried he wouldn’t think about it in all of the chaos.)

I immediately began walking in the direction of our neighborhood entrance. I had no idea, to be honest, that there was any sort of pond. Then, as I’m walking, I remembered a few weeks back when we saw these kids walking with fishing poles and Chw said “I hope they don’t eat fish from that pond, if it even has fish.” And I remember wondering what the heck he was even talking about.

Turns out it is really easy to find a pond when everyone is hanging around it. As I get there, my husband is treading water in a 10 ft deep pond, keeping a CAR afloat while another guy is cutting the seatbelt to get this guy out. Once the unconscious man is out of the car, Chw lets go of the car (which sinks pretty rapidly) and swims over to help the guy bring the unconscious man to the bank.

The victim is on land and awake before emergency response teams appear. He has no idea where he is at, or what has happened, and possibly not even who he was, he’s so out of it. My beautiful, brave husband is covered from neck to toe in grey-green sludge. His clothes had to be ten pounds heavier. It was a pretty intense experience and still my husband is having a tough time with it. We have different perspectives, he and I, and this experience has been a clear example of where his mind often goes… The one thing we do see the same is that the entire experience restored my faith in humanity a little bit. I kept saying that, throughout the evening. Of the dozen plus people out there watching, high on the emotion and adrenaline of the situation, not one person was filming a thing. No one was Facebook living or documenting that this was happening just beyond his or her front door. I am not going to lie- I fell in love with our neighborhood a little bit.

The facts, as I see them, timeline a little like this:

 

  • Chw wasn’t even supposed to be there, we were supposed to be meeting up somewhere else.
  • Around the time that I would have been leaving, is when this guy plowed through the oncoming traffic lane (would have been my lane) and nearly missed a home before slamming into the pond.
  • There was a woman walking her dogs on the sidewalk. One dog was dragging, out of character, and the speeding car missed her because of that.
  • To anyone who could see the area where all of this occurred, that he made it from the highway to the pond without hitting someone/something/a home/fellow drivers is unexplainable.
  • The entire crowd of people, who live on the pond side of things, was urging my husband NOT to go in, when a guy appeared out of nowhere (no one knew him) and once the victim was on shore, the stranger once again vanished. Of all of the people watching from their patios, from the crowd, no one could explain where he went. Dozens and dozens of “he was just here’s” flowed through the crowd.
  • Minus the mystery guy, and my husband, no one else wanted to go in. A few people helped in their own way… A guy had a knife to cut the seatbelt. Another guy produced a shovel for Chw to hold on to for leverage to swim the car closer to the bank.
  • My husband is a hero.

My husband’s take on the event is that he should have done more; That he shouldn’t have questioned it and just gone in; That he should have been more helpful; that he shouldn’t feel on edge or nervous when he’s driving now; that his involvement wasn’t a big deal so he doesn’t know why he hasn’t slept great and has been on edge since Friday evening.

We left before the news came. He didn’t want to be interviewed and I completely understood. (also, he looked like a swamp monster and so no one would have believed it was really him anyway.) (I’m kidding, of course.) Knife guy stayed and told the story well. Saturday the sheriff called my husband and left a beautiful voicemail. I was in an aisle of Target when my wide-eyed husband played it, choked up, and then handed it to me to hear. Fat tears filled my eyes because this man was really proud and grateful for my husband and I knew exactly how he felt.

I explained to Chw that trauma comes in all shapes and sizes. That what he experienced was traumatic stress, first from narrowly avoiding colliding with this guy (and we’ve all been in those types of situations and it is JARRING) to watching this horrible situation unfold (the car went airborne twice, you guys!) and then the very process of saving his life. It’s a lot. And the aftermath of stressful, traumatic situations is a lot to navigate through. He’s catching a yoga class tonight and I really hope that helps, but mostly this will just take time.

Make what you will of my headache, our change of plans or the disappearing stranger, my opinion is not going to change. It isn’t the first time that unexplained things have happened to my husband. (have I told you about the couch and the stairs? No? Perhaps, most recently, his bumper? also no? Another time, perhaps…) I just wanted to share the story and how extraordinary my husband is, and to give a huge shout out to this small corner of the world who did not prioritize social media over humanity.

 

 

The truth ship…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay1 Comment

These days there is an easiness which has settled in around us. We have grown in to something which the past few years had impaired. Most days we simply just be, him Chw and me, well- me. Routines fall in to place and there are moments, I will admit, when I question why it had felt so difficult before. It doesn’t take long before I remember. It wasn’t anyone’s fault but ours, really, but only in the ways that we allowed other people to take precedence over us. This happens so subtly that we don’t always realize that is what happens, especially when the couple transitions into a family.

I remember I was at a luncheon last fall and there was a discussion amongst the women at our table. All virtual strangers, there for a cause, one woman spoke up about how her youngest child was a junior in high school and she was terrified of what would become of her once he graduated and left the house. She was currently the team mom on his very heavy sports schedule. She was on the PTA. She ran each semester’s rather large fundraiser. She had made sure that in the high school careers of each of her three children, she had been ALL in. She was that mom. She admitted that she lived vicariously through the high school lives of her kids, attending every single function and never missing a moment. She loved it. She also admitted she was never home in the evenings or on weekends because her children deserved for everything to be about them.

What about your husband? I asked.

“Oh him? I don’t know. We have not had an actual conversation that wasn’t in passing about one of the kids sporting needs for well over a decade. I mean isn’t that what parenthood is? We will spend time together when it’s over.”

I was sad for her. When prodded a little, by another luncher, this woman briefly admitted that she had no idea who she even was outside of her kids high school lives. By this point I was really very sad for her. So sad in fact, that here we are months later and I think of this woman often. I am sad for her and her marriage. I am sad that she does not realize the couple part of her family equation, the foundation that began her family, may not really exist anymore. I was sad for both the man and the woman- the man who became invisible and unimportant to the woman he loved, and the woman who became those same things to herself.

I think that is the biggest marital advice I would ever have for anyone. In the way that we keep our eyes on the horizon so we don’t get car sick on the road- keep your eyes on your spouse. Never stop seeing them. I am not naive enough to think that hard seasons are done for us. We are approaching a heavy travel season where we won’t connect much, and honestly because our really ugly and painful bits aren’t that far in the past, this makes me nervous. What I do know however is that these current days of ease and being feel like all I have ever wanted, and I would not want to have them with anyone else. We have been together for twenty-four years, in various ways. He knows me, what I’ll like and not like, when I need to be close and when I don’t. He understands, without back story, the complications in relationships and who I truly value and trust. He knows the daughter, the mother and the friend I have been even better than myself. It is in those things, and the memories, moments and experiences with which the ease is founded. It took a lot of work to get to this place where the inside jokes of a lifetime ago still make us belly laugh until tears crest our eyes. This is what marriage becomes, but we have to allow it. We cannot allow our job, our children, family members or friends to come before this core part of our journey. There for a while we forgot that and allowed all of those things to take precedence, and our ship crashed hard.

What is it they say? If we learn from our mistakes then they weren’t failures after all? That feels true.

I have been thinking so much about that woman lately. Sadly, I would not recognize her if I crossed paths with her again, but I am hoping and praying she gets it and that it isn’t too late. During that meal and meeting, those months ago, the more she unlayered, the lonelier she sounded. Her drug for masking the feeling was her over-involvement with her kids. Once her kids move on to their next chapters though, I fear the insurmountable amount of pain she will likely slam into.

We’ve all done it: hide from our hurts/fears/failures in something else. It is the heart of addiction, adultery… It is the seed which grows the disasters of so many things. I know many lives, on this very day, of people I love and/or respect where this is happening. This is why we, as women, keep ourselves over busy. Let’s stop. Let’s let go of expectations and perceived expectations. Let’s take an honest look at the people we share our lives with, and ourselves, and then lets just kick back and be. Do I need to lose 50 lbs? yeah, I do. Should I go wash the handful of dishes in the sink? Absolutely. But hows my heart? Am I present in this moment? Am I feeling grounded? How’s my marriage? It isn’t that the superficial things are not important, but they are not the MOST important.

Home…

Published on by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

Two Julys ago I danced, headphones blaring, spreading a roller filled with paint over dingy greyed apartment walls. The walls were transforming into a brighter shade of winter snow, hoping to bring bright into the basement apartment which relied on only one glass door window for daylight.

I had spent months painting walls, beside my husband. We had tiled a kitchen, restored a fireplace and stood distantly side-by-side as we turned a house we were impartial to, into a home for our family. This last bit, an apartment for my mother, felt bigger than a paint job.

Two years ago I was seeing a counselor weekly. I was on the verge of an internal emotional collapse due the impending changes happening in my family, and in my home. My mother was coming to live with me. My mother, whom I had not actually lived with since I was twelve. My mother, our history of severe abuse and neglect spread like a chasm of complication and fear between us. She stated that coming to live with me sounded like hell to her, and if I were being honest, I felt the same. Instead I lied to myself and anyone who would listen about how I simply wanted her last days on earth to be happy and healthy ones. I picked up the responsibility of healing the relationship between us and carried it all alone. This, while distance grew by the day between my husband and I. He was my partner, my very best friend and I had no idea how to process such an unexplained gap. This house, and the impending arrival of my mother sat between us like a foul toad, squatting and promising to destroy everything it touched. Life felt hard, heavy, with air dank and thick. My flight or fight instinct kicked in roughly two years ago. I had to fight for everything I loved, or get out. I knew it as well as I understood anything. What I did not understand was the distance between Chw & I, or how to repair it. I did not understand how to walk in steps without him really present by my side. I did not understand how to approach and deal with this thing regarding my mother. Who am I kidding, before that house I felt competent and capable, but in that house I did not really know much of anything at all.

I flew. I disappeared into school on an impulse decision and lost myself into the healing of an unhealthy friendship because there I understood exactly where I fit in. While every day confirmed to me that my husband, my daughter (at home) and my mother were the people who liked my presence the least, this friend needed me. I knew where I stood with him. We did not have the sort of relationship that betrayed my marriage, though honestly I was so desperate for someone to actually find me of value- it could have happened. I was like a person living so far outside of their actual life, numb to the realities of what happened and just getting through each day.

My life fell apart, and I am sad to say my counselor was very instrumental in everything. From the losing myself in the friendship, to the personally pushing distance between my husband and I. By the time a few months had passed, I was only listening to two people- the mental health professional I relied on, and the only person who seemed to think I was worth anything. I felt like I was daily dying to be loved.

It has been a really long two years. It is hard to believe that Chw and I were only physically separated for 6 months, it felt like years. Years of heartache, years of life experience and years of growth and healing within myself.

This July I chose paint colors for the walls of our new home. (it’s a rental, though long-term. I’ve learned the lesson of buying houses in Michigan. Two huge financial failures, and I’m secure in a lease, thank you very much.) I unpacked boxes and displayed family photos as though they were precious art. The reality struck me that the last time I put together a home, was that house, those two years ago. I both loved and hated that house. Seeing the new buyers change things is both bitter and sweet. While new homes should feel full of possibility, that home never really did. For two years I have wandered internally, wishing for balm to soothe aches and hurts, devastation and broken trusts. For two years I have felt stranded and abandoned. The last year of that had me finally sleeping in the same bed every night, though temporary. loss and turmoil were the interior design of choice then.

This time around there is simply home. My soul needed the roller on wall to reset the purpose behind such acts. The process, the newness, the fresh paint scented creation of some place good.

It has been one literal hell of a journey, but I finally feel home. Home is not walls and a roof, nor is it a destination. Home is simply a place of peace and rest, and a shelter for the growth life takes us through.

Consider it an invitation…

Published on by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

I love Jesus.

I am pretty ok with that, and I hope that you are too. If you aren’t, just know I am ok with that too. My loving Jesus isn’t about you at all, it is about me. It’s about my heart, my life, my choices, my journey, and a lot of other large and small things which add up to equal my faith.

I cautiously consider myself a Christian. I say cautiously because, honestly, at least in America (and some perceptions of American Christianity) the name has gained a bit of a rough reputation.

My pastor spent Sunday morning talking about Detroit. This looked a little like a history lesson. It involved political bits, heart bits, hard truths and a bunch of other uncomfortable and completely relevant things which together equalled a pretty amazing talk. He challenged us to be honest with ourselves about the walls we build. Initially the topic came up because Detroit was once known to have a dividing wall. I guess pieces of this wall still exist. This wall was raised to literally divide the African-Americans and the Whites. Though the wall isn’t technically much of a thing anymore, Detroit is still ranked as the most segregated city in America. I live in the metro part of this amazing city and I have to say this announcement shocked me. Our church alone, (granted, it’s a pretty huge church) likely has multiple people from most nations, in attendance. Our neighborhood actually has a dozen flag poles sporting flags from 12 different nations because we are such a diverse little community. Then again, this is the metro area, and not Detroit itself.

He illustrated his point by having several people from different countries approach the front of the church. They looked at each other, chatted some, laughed a little and then affirmed “there are no more walls between us.” I’ll admit it- it was emotional and I totally teared up. After this, he had fans of rivaling college teams do the same thing. It was funny and laughs were had, but when he sobered and asked us what walls we put up, I was challenged. I am pretty accepting. I don’t shy away from anyone really. I love meeting people and things that are different don’t scare me. Since that service, I’ve thought a lot about this. There are off-putting things, about me, which likely cause others to put up a wall between us. Despite losing 130 lbs, I am still overweight. I have a lazy eye. I was separated from my husband for 6 months (an issue that many fellow Christians we know can’t seem to get past.) in fact, here is a list of things which have caused people I’ve known to distance themselves from me…

I voted for Hillary.

I have a diverse taste of music.

I don’t support people who discriminate against ANYONE and using their religion as an excuse.

I worked as a film critic for years.

I drink.

As a photographer I have done many boudoir sessions.

I am an adoptive parent.

I struggled with infertility.

I am pro-choice and hate abortion.

I was sexually abused.

I hate porn and believe it decomposes a person’s ability to have healthy self image/relationships/etc.

I am a feminist.

I believe in marriage.

I support equality.

I do not believe men and women are equal. I am different from my husband and my brother. I am not better, but different. I don’t want to be like them.

I do believe men and women should have equal rights, DO HAVE equal worth and value.

I love Jesus.

I will never “shove Jesus down your throat” or preach at you.

I am a person and so each of these things make up a piece of my story… Each of these things has a story and reason for it’s position in my life.

I will not bother/hurt/offend me if your stories are different and your beliefs do not match mine.

 

If you know me, you know that I am a party planner. Best of all are dinner parties. LOVE THEM. Upon moving back to Michigan in 2013, my party opportunities are limited, and this makes me a little sad. After that sermon though, I got to imagining a dinner party. What if we had a lovely homosexual couple over for dinner. What if, in addition to them, we had an African-American couple, a middle eastern couple and a few other diverse additions? Other than the likely fact that we would have some really interesting and unpredictable conversation, what would we have?

A dinner party.

That is literally it. It would not be an experiment. It would not be a meeting. It would not be anything other than a group of people getting together to share a meal and converse. Obviously we would all have SOMETHING in common, or the dinner party wouldn’t exist in the first place. (hence the interesting and unpredictable conversation)

I really wish this dinner party were happening. Do you know why? Because I am seriously lonely and want to host a lovely little dinner party. (That’s the only reason actually. Maybe you should come for dinner…)

When it comes to a different race, or a different class, or a different religion, I am unruffled. None of these things will hinder me from approaching someone, or befriending them, or responding to them if they approach me. The one thing that may honestly hinder me is the fact that I am a total introvert and often have much better intentions than follow through, and I get a little insecure. While I want to approach someone, those things I first mentioned (overweight, lazy eye, etc.) become the wall I throw up to save my ass from someone else’s rejection.

Recently I had the opportunity to get to know a small group of women. One of the women I shallowly pegged immediately as a little stuck up and clearly she had it all together. She was thin and honestly, gorgeous. As time progressed though, it became surprisingly obvious that this beautiful woman and I had far more in common that anyone else in the group. Ironically the fat girl with the lazy eye and the drop dead gorgeous and in shape woman became friends. Is that how she saw me? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I threw up a wall with my initial assessment, and what I assumed would be hers… Thankfully that wall became a gate and now it is gone completely. My point is, when pastor Bob challenged us to find our walls and why we build them, this friend instantly popped in my head. I could have missed out on so much because I jumped to conclusions. I don’t do that as a habit, but I don’t want to do it ever. I want to be better, with others and with myself.

I want to have dinner party after dinner party where my table is filled with people who contribute to great conversation, people who enjoy food and maybe an occasional game or glass of wine. Beyond that, while I don’t want to be blind to their differences, I do want to understand and appreciate them for the unique people they are. (whoever they will be)

 

 

Celebrating “friends”, poking and narcism, oh my…

Published on by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

Ten years ago, on Tuesday, marked my decade long relationship with Facebook. It was my son, Lucas, who originally urged me to sign up. I was on Myspace and pretty happily connected with my friends and little writing community that way. I signed up, unsure of how it even worked. I mean, seriously, why did I want to poke someone? I mentioned it to a then-good friend and she confided that she was friends with Jessica Simpson, a couple of country singers and a few other random celebrities. Hearing this actually made Facebook a little worse for me. I wasn’t stupid, and I had spent more than a handful of years working within that industry. None of those people were connected to my friend, not even by social media. I have always hated superficial and fake things, and from the beginning Facebook struck me as such. It wasn’t too long though, until friends turned me on to annoying games that I lost hours in. I got caught up in the seven stages of facebooking, after a while. The incessant status updates that no one should EVER do. I shared photos of every little venture away from the house, I made. I checked in at restaurants, shopping, the library… I don’t anymore. Now, I allow myself one hour a week to catch up on people’s news, and that’s it. When I mentioned this, recently, to a friend, she was amazed. How could I do it? She was jealous. I explained to her that the ONLY “friends” I had on the social media site were people I genuinely had relationships with/interactions with/and an interest in having relationships and interactions with. If you’re my Facebook friend I either really respect and admire you, love you a lot, or have a real life, interactive relationship with you. (Most friends make up two or all three of those descriptions. I do not collect people.) Just because went to school together, worked together, grocery shopped at Kroger at the same time or both enjoy Method cleaners does not mean we need to be connected via: Facebook. Also, I explained, the people I have real, interactive relationships with know that I am not really on Facebook regularly and when they have news to share- they send it via a letter/card/email/text/call/vox/marco polo/coffee date/etc.

When I was 31 I apparently joined Facebook. Ironically then too was a time of transition, in my life. If memory serves me correctly however, I handled it much more like a champ than now. (No, I do not credit Facebook for this) Over the past 10 years though, so much has happened. Relationships were built, healed, shattered, splintered. I moved back to the one place I’ve never loved. My mother had a series of small strokes which changed her life, and by extension, mine. My mother had breast cancer and underwent a double mastectomy. I became ill and was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. I nearly died from a serious case of pneumonia. I have made it through the HARDEST years of my life, as a daughter, as a wife and especially as a mother. I have not made it through unscathed and I struggle with some resentments and issues resulting from such things. I have had a small, but successful photography business which completely transformed my love of photography into something I no longer loved. I have traveled throughout California, watched fireworks from a hilltop cemetery, jumped on the Twilight bandwagon, came to my senses and jumped off. I have camped on the Oregon coast, learned how to do dozens of new things, delved deeply into paper crafting and then reluctantly climbed out of that. I spent a week along the coasts and ports of Washington state, road tripped throughout New England, spent part of the Christmas season in New York City. I have been a cleaner, trained to be an Esthetician (which was a long dream of mine), worked in retail, worked in marketing, both renovated a beautiful home and been homeless. I have had the distinct honor of witnessing marriages I am so proud of, met beautiful babies I adore. I have been there when two of the most precious babies in the world to me, have been born. I have had anxiety ridden, ICU bed side days, sleepless nights and dawning moments where miracles and answers to prayers happened. I have seen my faith weaken, grow and embarrassingly numb in the in-betweens. My two older kids have both married and become parents. My son enlisted, has deployed and I see him far more seldom than I ever imagined I could live with. I attended the memorial service of a girl who died far too young, and far too tragically, whom I loved a deeply embedded amount. I have lost 130 pounds, gained twenty, screamed, cried, cursed, shouted, sobbed and at times wished I were dead. I have contemplated, prayed, praised, laughed, embraced, nurtured, comforted and had to come to terms with so many things. I have heartbreakingly buried two beloved dogs, and gone through the deaths of several family members. Ten years ago I had so much hope in my motherhood, my daughterhood, my marriage, my writerhood, my life. Today, at 41, I can no longer find much of that.

Again, Facebook is not responsible for any of those things, but it certainly is a scrapbook for most of them. It is a record of a decade spent living, most of the good and enough of the bad. It is the place where friends of my husband attempted to tarnish my reputation, further poison him against me and drive a wedge deep into our marriage that will likely never be repaired. It is the place where people resort to sharing their big news, leaving their own parents and children to be heartbroken that they had to learn it from Facebook. When it is said and done, aside from the chronicling of our moments, I have to question if it does more bad than good, consistently.

Honestly, I have a pretty hate/hate opinion of the website. I do not keep it on my phone. I only keep it at all, because I am connected with my son & daughter-in-law on there and don’t want to miss something that doesn’t really bridge the thousands of miles otherwise. I keep it because, as a writer, it is a powerful tool and since I do freelance work for PR companies, on occasion, it is a necessary evil. This week, however, I am feeling grateful for the mark of this decade together. Good or bad, Facebook was there for me through ten big years and that isn’t something to take for granted… And if we are friends on there, thank you for that. For me, that is a real thing…