Storms, cont.

as they tend to do

In my last post, I talked about the storms of life. Such an original thought, I know. But if you read it, you know I like that metaphor because I love actual storms and at times in my life I’ve loved, or at least came to think of chaos as “normal”, and I’m finally reaching an age, or maybe just a mindset, where I’m over it.

That posted at 9am. Six hours later we were in the emergency room.

Life imitates…

I’m not going to go into minutia about what sent us there, but it was a complication with my husband’s cancer, which if you’ve been reading for a while you’ll have some backstory. But even if you haven’t, I’m sure you’ve experienced that kind of seemingly simulated coincidence. Write about storms, feel good about the peace in your life, and then life says BAM! Just kidding!

It felt like a grand test of my personal epiphany. Well, life, I didn’t enjoy it. Did I pass?

What resulted was a new scary problem to deal with—which is how cancer works—and a week of some of the most emotionally challenging days we’ve had together in our thirteen years as a couple. After the fire we had in 2018, I remember feeling like an empty shell for quite a while. The shock of that experience was intense and long lasting. But it didn’t bring with it the dread and nausea a serious health diagnosis brings, that feeling that your stomach is going to drop out of your body and take your heart with it.

That’s what our week was like, and though we’re both in much better spirits now, it lingers like a thick humidity post thunderstorm. It makes me think about the level of tolerance to physical and emotional stress one has to have in order to keep moving forward in this kind of situation. It feels impossible. But then you just keep moving forward. People ask me often “how are you” or “how do you do it”, and like most caregiving partners, I’m sure, I think, I have no idea.

But I do have an idea. It’s a very simple one, and it’s a very complex one. Love.

In the beginning of this particular storm, I didn’t know if I loved enough. I wasn’t sure if I had the determination to see us through the downpour, or even get wet in the first place. I had no confidence in my ability to be a good caregiving partner—I am often annoyed by people just getting sick in general. Not one of my better qualities, I’ll admit. But I truly wondered if I’d have the very long-term empathy needed for the role. And the hardest question was, do I even want to see this through? If I force myself to face my biggest fear—watching the person I love die—is that something I can really be present for?

If you’ve had to ask yourself that question and your choice was “no”, I don’t judge you. I can see the appeal of jumping ship. Your life is no longer what it was or what you thought it would become. Your time is hijacked constantly. Your future becomes a haze of unknown prospects. And the idea of only having to think about your loved one in their best form is a nice memory to end a relationship on.

But in my case, if I had given in to my early fears of “I can’t do this” I wouldn’t have learned that I actually can. And although is is NOT the way I wanted to learn this life lesson, I am grateful for it. I’m grateful for how our relationship has been taken to a new level—because we let it—one in which we are both so fully committed and weirdly infatuated with each other still. We cry a lot more together, but we also have great sex and fabulous conversations and a ton of laughter.

In a way, embracing such serious and scary circumstances has helped to tear down my walls of insecurity and self-protection. And I think that goes for Joe too. He’s had to reevaluate his needs, both emotional and physical, and give himself up to the fact that he can’t do everything on his own anymore. He has to rely on me in ways we wouldn’t have expected for another twenty years. And I’ve had to at least try to step up to some of that challenge at a time when I was finally breathing a little easier now that all six of our kids are graduated and moving into adulthood, swapping worry for children to worry for husband. Although I don’t think I’ll ever stop worrying for children completely, and don’t forget aging parents….

Okay, so worry is just the new black.

I don’t know what I’m trying to say here, except that the unsettled feeling of constant storms is really, really hard. But it also has a lot of beauty. When I’m feeling particularly angry or sad about having less time with Joe than I want, or frustrated about changed plans or whenever the tougher parts rear up, I am simultaneously grateful for the time that we do have, and the joy in an unplanned day. When I don’t fight it, they compliment each other, the darkness and the beauty, just as a good storm does.