Anniversery

I haven't opened with a little anecdote or comment about Kame this morning. Some wounds are just too deep to patch with a metaphor, and too painful to make light of or draw into perspective... yet.

A year ago, my husband traveled to Los Vegas without me, ostensibly to attend a friend's wedding. He went alone, or so I thought, until I got The Call, from an old girlfriend's husband. "Did you know...?" No, I didn't.

A year later, I find myself searching for perspective in the whirling chaos that phone call left behind, and falling short.

Robert Frost wrote:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

***

The Call was the culmination of everything that had led up to that point. We'd been dancing around each other, with bitterness and resentment creeping in but unwilling to face things head on for so long it felt like we were two nations in a cold war, playing at peace while bolstering our defenses and building secret stockpiles of ammunition. Vegas felt like the first salvo in what could become an all-out war, depending on how I responded.

It was two days before Thanksgiving, and I was in a frozen wilderness, the accusation and my husband's confessions ("yes, he saw her there") and denials ("nothing happened") sounding in my ears, staring down two paths, one marked "Stay", the other marked "Go."

Which would I choose? Both looked difficult. Jagged rocks protruded, threatening destruction. "Go" was a downhill slide, filled with hidden dark pits of Loneliness and Desolation. War would be inevitable, fighting over custody, support... I hated the thought of what we once had changing into something twisted, of looking into a once-loved face and seeing only frozen resentment looking back.
I knew, from walking with friends as they traversed the path, that it could lead to smoother land, perhaps a whole new adventure, but the way was treacherous and fraught with dangers, and I would walk it alone, holding only my childrens' hands.

"Stay" appeared smoother, but I'd been injured on that path, betrayed by the one who should have been at my side, loyal through life's journey. Staying meant believing his regret was sincere, believing he was telling the truth, though at the time I had my doubts. It meant taking the chance that we would fall back into our cold-war patterns, that history would simply repeat itself and that battle was inevitable whether I wanted it or not.

I stood at the fork in the road, undecided, frightened, in pain so deep I thought I'd never find my way out again, and despaired.

Frost chose his path:

Then took the other, as just as fair
And perhaps having the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

***
The two paths... Rather than choose, I ran away, fled to a friend's house, a temporary sanctuary. I received advice, spent hours talking and crying... and in time, made a choice, although I was uncertain and afraid.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

***
Staying was one of the most difficult, and one of the most important, choices I've ever made. I could say it was because of the kids... In fact, at the time, my commitment to staying was limited. It will be eight years before both our children are in college. I reasoned that it's difficult enough to navigate through this world, without the stigma of a broken home hanging over one's head. My children, at least, would be spared the scars of battle.

I kept the first for another day, knowing I might change my mind, might regret my choice... but now, a year later, way has led to way. We have grown and changed in this journey, and I doubt if I shall ever go back.

I have chosen my path. I have taken my road, made my peace, and though the going is sometimes rough, I believe I have chosen the better path. Only time will tell for sure.

~*~*~

"But Ruth replied, "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God."

-The Book of Ruth 1: 16
(NIV)

The jungle

Sometimes Kame finds himself in tall grass. Sometimes he positively seeks it out, climbing his way deep into brush where he can hide from whatever perils a turtle's mind can imagine lurk in the big wild world outdoors.

What is it that drives him to explore? What makes him so intent on traveling, so resistant to being held back by anything at all? What keeps him moving forward?

Kame is a very stubborn soul. He is determined. He is tenacious. I wish I were more like him.

When I started out on this journey called marriage, in my mother's kitchen one evening, as Ken took a knee and offered me a heart-shaped ring, I didn't know what we were signing on for. The lawn looked smooth, the soft grass green and inviting. I never imagined a jungle beyond its borders.

Our future was secure, safe. White picket fences and a neatly manicured flower garden lay in our future. Fat, happy babies playing in the sun. Perhaps a dog. A cat. We would, of course, be happy. Isn't that how life works? You work hard, you enjoy the satisfaction of building a home and family together, and grow old to enjoy the fruits of time well spent and lives well lived?

I never imagined, in those first heady moments, the catering firm going out of business mere months before the wedding. I never guessed at my niece abandoning her family and embarking on a teenage folly, taking her two-year-old son and joining a traveling carnival and leaving us not only heartbroken, but one bridesmaid and one ring bearer short for the service. I never could have imagined scrambling to find a new venue for the reception when the hall we'd chosen closed with only two months to find a replacement.

Nothing could have prepared me for the briers and brambles that sprang up almost immediately, the normal, day to day conflicts that began to grow, to encroach and soon to choke out the first heady infatuation.

We forged ahead, diving headlong into the jungles of parenthood, ready (we thought) for adventure. We'd read our map and this was the way to go. Our path was leading in the expected direction. We were on our way to a house, a dog, 2.5 kids and a minivan. Our course was set and we knew exactly where we were going.

Except we didn't know that the path through the jungle is fraught with danger. We didn't know a two-year-old could throw tantrums that left even Grandma and preschool teachers with twenty years experience baffled. We didn't know a child could be as stubborn, as tenacious and as incredibly fierce as our red-headed tornado.

We didn't know we'd have a second child before our first was out of preschool. We didn't know our eldest would go on to continue throwing violent temper tantrums well into elementary before falling into a depression which took a year of counseling to counteract. We didn't know how hard being parents would be.

As I write this, I am tired... further than tired, I'm exhausted. We've been through two years of counseling with our second child, as he's exhibiting a temper that rivals even his sister's, and a similar lack of control and maturity relative to his age. Tonight, my ten-year-old sat in his chair at the table and sobbed because he had to take his dog out and he didn't like what we had for dinner.

He's often tender and gentle and kind, and I hope he will, one day, understand the value of relationships, but tonight he sat in his chair and asked us to get rid of the dog he begged for two years to own. He claimed we "don't care about" him. He took all our efforts, all our love and care and consideration over the past few years stamped it into the dirt with his complete rejection of our love.

Sometimes I think God gives us children so we can experience His pain.

We've been wandering through this jungle for so long, sometimes I wonder if there is a way out any longer. Still, I've seen glimmers of sun through the brush, rays of hope shining through as our first child develops into the beautiful young woman she's meant to be. We've talked to other parents who assure us that the wilderness has an edge, and that life beyond the borders of adolescence can be peaceful once more. I pray it is so.

Tonight, I am tired. Tomorrow is another day. I will pick up my machete, take my husband's hand, and walk on. The only way out of this is to stick together and keep moving. We'll find our way, in time.

*~*~*

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.

The Psalms of David, 121: 1-2 NIV

Don't fence me in

One of Kame's favorite activities is climbing. Wherever he is, he seems to believe there is something better, something more, on the other side of the obstacles in his way.

Sometimes, I think my determined little terrapin friend has the right idea. Other times, I feel fenced in, trapped, as if I can never escape the choices I've made over the past twenty years. Walls... sometimes they seem unscalable. Fencing me in... holding me back.

Watching Kame climb, I realized that if an awkward little turtle, wearing a heavy shell, laboring away with his short legs and stiff plastron, can manage to get into the amount of mischief Kame manages to find, I should be able to overcome a few inconveniences.

When I was seventeen years old, two weeks before I turned eighteen, my father passed away. Cancer slipped in like smoke, winding its evil way into our lives. I knew, early on, that something was wrong, but I didn't know what. I tried to get him to see a doctor, to talk to Mom about how weak he felt, how sick he was, how he hadn't gotten out of bed much lately, how he was always "sick to his stomach", but Dad... Well Dad was a proud man, and I believe he knew, right from the beginning, that he was dying. He didn't want endless poking and prodding. He wanted a peaceful exit, a quiet walk into that good night.

I... I wanted my dad. I wanted him alive, well, and taking me fishing. I wanted to hear him laugh. I wanted to see him bouncing his grandchildren on his knee. I wanted his hugs... I wanted his approval.

Of course, what I want and what life hands out are quite often two very different things. Dad got his peaceful slide. Mom took care of him with tenderness I'll never forget, and I, well I was like a third wheel, always seeming to be in the way. Regret and hurts and grief piled up, building a wall between me and my hopes for the future that I thought would never come down.

The wall has loomed large lately. I have wanted my father more in this past year than I have in all the twenty he's been gone. In the past, grief was an obstacle, a wall I couldn't climb over. It seemed endless, stretching to the sky.

A character in a movie I love runs off into the distance, measuring the length of a hedge that has suddenly appeared on his turf. "It goes on forever!" he comments, before disappearing into the distance in the opposite direction. "It goes on forever this way too!"

Grief can seem like that, a never-ending wall stopping forward motion.

It is time I climbed the wall. It's time to move forward. Like Kame, I am learning to climb, despite the load I've been carrying, despite everything in my way.

To that end, I've applied to attend SUNY Binghamton's Winter Session, beginning in January. I've also entered NaNoWriMo, a writing challenge which will be in full swing by the time this blog entry is published.

Lesson number four for marriage, and also in life: obstacles are not walls, they are challenges. Life is an obstacle course and we can only truly live if we keep on climbing, keep on growing, keep on moving forward.