Sincere Thanks
Apparently my blog now gets spam. Besides a couple adds in the comment section below, I find enormous beauty in the other posts. Enormous. If I ever had doubts about being able to receive support via my blog, those are gone. The sincere and personal nature of the comments and insights is deeply moving.
Mrs Fish, you rock. Steph and I are intense too. In some ways we, or at least I, was scared by our anger years ago, scared of actual confrontation, and S definitely is a woman who speaks her mind. I think one of the things that attracted me to her was that of all people, she was not in denial about what pissed her off. A couple years before I met her, maybe one year, she went through her closet and cut all the labels out of her clothes. They weren't swank labels, mind you, but she didn't want to be affected by icons of commerce. A girl who at 22 read Emerson (for real; I'm still getting around to most of him) Thoreau, Gary Snyder. I was impressed. But while I found her open anger and strong personality refreshing, in some ways complementary, when it got directed at me in any way, I got defensive, scared, basically freaked.
So I hid; denied my anger (again) and ruminated. Obsessed, too. Years where whole days were lost to anxiety. I've been working on admitting my anger and fear in this relationship for a couple of years, but it always does me good to hear about another couple who fought yet stayed together. And Alison...the distance between heads on the pillow...that touches me so much.
You will all think this is bizarre, but somehow I have this idea that marriage really should be polite, sweet, nurturing, gentle and without conflict. Like...geez, where did I get this idea...from TV; from Mr. and Mrs. C. on Happy Days? (Only sexy, also.) While I'm astonishingly, even stupidly, good at confronting authority figures in other parts of my life, with my sig. other...no, please, let's just be calm and talk nice. Let's not disagree out loud.
Probably because my mother was a rager, raging, rage machine. And my father bottled his anger, but when it did come out, you could get hurt.
I don't know when recovery ends. I'm still digging through my old patterns. I don't know another way.
But I must say again: such beauty and support in the comments. Are things back to normal at home? No. Though I did tell her I missed her tonight, that I hoped we'd get back to normal. But I don't know if it's all the pressure we're both under (she's taking on lots of new responsibility) or that she might be pregnant and her hormones are swinging. I guess we'll know about that soon enough. She didn't think so a few days ago, but I have genuine suspicions.
And if so, great. So we won't be empty nesters in five or six years after all. I'm just glad to be alive and struggling with the problems of the living. If not...maybe that will help me decide how I feel about the issue. I did have a swimmer count nearly a year ago and my numbers were very low, perhaps in part because of all the hot baths I take. I think we both thought it couldn't happen. But if it does, well, see lifting weights really does change your hormones. If it's a boy I'll name it Draper. Just kidding honey, if you're reading.
Geez though; this week has been hell.
***
But in the midst of hell was joy also.
Two more days in Santa Cruz this last weekend sailing. I left town the morning after our huge fight, which absolutely and completely sucks and is something I never want to do again. I couldn't use my cell phone much because I couldn't charge it there so we hardly even spoke. I barely ate the first day; I was in a grief state, really. But the time in the boat and the time on the sea was still good. It's hard, actually, trying to learn everything I need for a bareboat license. That means you can rent boats all over the world and sail them without any skipper or crew but yourself and who you bring. Since boats cost a lot of money and they don't want you chartering a boat just to sail it into a supertanker, the standard is pretty high. I've done four days out of eight (the minimum; not everyone passes after eight days) and while I'm picking it up quick, it's amazing how much you have to know about marine toilets, for instance, or nautical charts, not to mention sailing the boat.
I love every bit of it.
The sea in Santa Cruz is the real thing, gorgeous blue green, with mild swells this time of year and lots of semi-wild coastland right near the city. The wind, and the sun, and the sea, and the feeling of accomplishment learning to drive that boat through it...it's one of the best things I have going for myself these days. I've underhobbied since we moved north six years ago. Was it Adler who stressed the need for self-care and recreation, followed by about ten thousand recovery authors? They're right of course. I get so caught up in work, in 'providing,' and wasting time to relieve the subsequent stress I forget to have fun. It's pretty hard not to have fun sailing in gorgeous weather in that Bay. I thank God for that beauty.
Thanks for listening gang. I mean it. I'll keep you posted. Blog love in all your directions. Life is very, very real.
Troy
Mrs Fish, you rock. Steph and I are intense too. In some ways we, or at least I, was scared by our anger years ago, scared of actual confrontation, and S definitely is a woman who speaks her mind. I think one of the things that attracted me to her was that of all people, she was not in denial about what pissed her off. A couple years before I met her, maybe one year, she went through her closet and cut all the labels out of her clothes. They weren't swank labels, mind you, but she didn't want to be affected by icons of commerce. A girl who at 22 read Emerson (for real; I'm still getting around to most of him) Thoreau, Gary Snyder. I was impressed. But while I found her open anger and strong personality refreshing, in some ways complementary, when it got directed at me in any way, I got defensive, scared, basically freaked.
So I hid; denied my anger (again) and ruminated. Obsessed, too. Years where whole days were lost to anxiety. I've been working on admitting my anger and fear in this relationship for a couple of years, but it always does me good to hear about another couple who fought yet stayed together. And Alison...the distance between heads on the pillow...that touches me so much.
You will all think this is bizarre, but somehow I have this idea that marriage really should be polite, sweet, nurturing, gentle and without conflict. Like...geez, where did I get this idea...from TV; from Mr. and Mrs. C. on Happy Days? (Only sexy, also.) While I'm astonishingly, even stupidly, good at confronting authority figures in other parts of my life, with my sig. other...no, please, let's just be calm and talk nice. Let's not disagree out loud.
Probably because my mother was a rager, raging, rage machine. And my father bottled his anger, but when it did come out, you could get hurt.
I don't know when recovery ends. I'm still digging through my old patterns. I don't know another way.
But I must say again: such beauty and support in the comments. Are things back to normal at home? No. Though I did tell her I missed her tonight, that I hoped we'd get back to normal. But I don't know if it's all the pressure we're both under (she's taking on lots of new responsibility) or that she might be pregnant and her hormones are swinging. I guess we'll know about that soon enough. She didn't think so a few days ago, but I have genuine suspicions.
And if so, great. So we won't be empty nesters in five or six years after all. I'm just glad to be alive and struggling with the problems of the living. If not...maybe that will help me decide how I feel about the issue. I did have a swimmer count nearly a year ago and my numbers were very low, perhaps in part because of all the hot baths I take. I think we both thought it couldn't happen. But if it does, well, see lifting weights really does change your hormones. If it's a boy I'll name it Draper. Just kidding honey, if you're reading.
Geez though; this week has been hell.
***
But in the midst of hell was joy also.
Two more days in Santa Cruz this last weekend sailing. I left town the morning after our huge fight, which absolutely and completely sucks and is something I never want to do again. I couldn't use my cell phone much because I couldn't charge it there so we hardly even spoke. I barely ate the first day; I was in a grief state, really. But the time in the boat and the time on the sea was still good. It's hard, actually, trying to learn everything I need for a bareboat license. That means you can rent boats all over the world and sail them without any skipper or crew but yourself and who you bring. Since boats cost a lot of money and they don't want you chartering a boat just to sail it into a supertanker, the standard is pretty high. I've done four days out of eight (the minimum; not everyone passes after eight days) and while I'm picking it up quick, it's amazing how much you have to know about marine toilets, for instance, or nautical charts, not to mention sailing the boat.
I love every bit of it.
The sea in Santa Cruz is the real thing, gorgeous blue green, with mild swells this time of year and lots of semi-wild coastland right near the city. The wind, and the sun, and the sea, and the feeling of accomplishment learning to drive that boat through it...it's one of the best things I have going for myself these days. I've underhobbied since we moved north six years ago. Was it Adler who stressed the need for self-care and recreation, followed by about ten thousand recovery authors? They're right of course. I get so caught up in work, in 'providing,' and wasting time to relieve the subsequent stress I forget to have fun. It's pretty hard not to have fun sailing in gorgeous weather in that Bay. I thank God for that beauty.
Thanks for listening gang. I mean it. I'll keep you posted. Blog love in all your directions. Life is very, very real.
Troy
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