Erin and I drove 90 minutes north yesterday to see The Avett Brothers perform in Portland, Maine. By the end of the night, we realized we just don’t have the concert-going energy we had in our early 20s.
Mood music:
http://youtu.be/2L6XJOjCaAE
The band didn’t begin until 9, and we were surrounded by people in their 20s and early 30s. The smell of pot hung in the air, giving us headaches. It used to be the smell didn’t bother me, especially when I was using the stuff. But then I stopped smoking it in the early 1990s.
The Avett Brothers is a folk rock act, one of those middle-of-the-road sounds both of us like (Erin likes mostly folk and bluegrass, while I’m a metal head.) I used to go to metal concerts all the time, seeing Metallica five times in 1988-89 alone. I’d get home at 3 in the morning, then be up and at ’em by 6 a.m. as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Back then, I guess that was normal for a 20-year-old.
Now, getting by on three hours of sleep destroys me. But there’s no sleeping in when there’s a job to do and two kids to get off to school. I’ll pay for this for days. But it was worth it. I’d also do it again.
But now that I’m in this 40-year-old body, maybe I’ll take a long afternoon nap beforehand.
Some people look at getting older with dread. Not me. After my childhood illness and the craziness of my young adulthood, it’s a blessing that I’m here at all. So even when my knees ache and my back is about to collapse, I still feel every inch of the good life.
Erin doesn’t seem to mind getting older, either. Aches and pains aside, she remains healthy, knock on wood.
As we watched the young pups party it up last night, we both chuckled, because we were in the seats section with other older folks, and we weren’t bothered by that one bit.
Despite being tired and not as full of pep as we used to be, we still showed up for the concert and drove 90 minutes to boot.
Since the goal for someone like me, with a history of depression and addictive behavior, is to show up for life, it’s hard to see it as anything other than a victory.
We came. We enjoyed. We went home.
We may need a couple bottles of ibuprofen and a bath tub full of caffeine to reach the finish line, but we have plenty of that stuff lying around. That’s how we roll.
We just roll a little more slowly than we used to.
There are the usual reasons for this: Complications develop when you’re close to both people in the marriage that’s breaking up. But something else happens: You start to worry if your marriage is next.
We’ve been together for nearly 18 years and probably love each other more today than we did the day we got married in 1998. We’ve each done a lot of work to make ourselves better people and, as a result, a better couple, in recent years.
But, as they say, marriage is hard work, and we’re no exception.
As the years march on, things happen. Work and children fill up all the hours in a day and couples end up so focused on family business that it starts to become just that — a business. You forget to share the simple or the deepest thoughts with each other. Let that go on long enough and the relationship decays before you know what hit you.
I carried on for a long time thinking everything was just perfect because I considered myself better than the average husband. After all, I did a lot of chores around the house. Surely that was enough.
It wasn’t, of course.
I wasn’t communicating. I wasn’t telling Erin what was in my head. And, because I feared she would take off if I pushed too hard, I always kept things inside when something she did made me angry. Do that long enough and you become a brutally passive-aggressive time bomb.
Mix in the fact that my OCD and addictions were running wild and you get a large marriage problem.
I eventually confronted those demons head on, and after several more years I emerged free of the fear and anxiety that had crippled me.
I’d think to myself that that’s enough self improvement to make the marriage perfect again. I even got up the courage to push back during arguments. Monumental improvement, wouldn’t you say?
Well…
More time goes on.
Erin quits her job and starts a business. I urge her on. And when the going gets tough and she’s putting in so many hours that we lose out on quality time, I grow impatient, forgetting about how patient she was while I was spending years gluing the pieces of my shattered brain back together.
Naturally, I keep those frustrations to myself for a long time, until I explode about everything in one argument.
We talk about it a lot and settle into a new, stronger pattern. I think we’re all set, and then I go on a couple business trips close together. Somewhere during that trip, I realize I forgot to sign and seal the Valentine’s Day card and, before I know what I’m doing, I lie about it.
Naturally, I get caught. She’s furious with me for that and because I appear to be enjoying the road a little too much.
We do a lot of talking in the weeks that follow. I tell her I feel like I’m competing with her business. She gets it. We resolve to work on it and we do so. Things get better.
Then we get busy again, and one night she tells me she misses my sharing things with her.
The statement floors me. Of course I’ve been sharing. I tell her everything.
Only I’m not, really.
I write everything in this blog, and in telling the world everything, I have it in my head that I’m telling her everything. So we work some more on how to better communicate.
And the battle rolls on.
I don’t tell you all this to complain. The reality is that this is something EVERY married couple deals with. I don’t care how perfect you think your marriage is. Chances are, you and your spouse have been through all these things and more. It’s the way it is.
Marriage is hard work. You either want it badly enough to keep working on it, or you stop trying and things fall apart.
Here are a few things we’ve learned. It is by no means a complete to-do list, because like you, we’re still learning new things all the time — whether we like it or not.
For one thing, communication is always something we can be doing better.
We have to learn to speak our minds, even when it means an argument might develop. We have to remember to share the loftier ideas in our heads.
One thing I’m making a point to do is share my blog ideas and drafts with her before posting them.
Did I send this one to her for feedback before posting? If I hadn’t, I’d be in some deep trouble right about now.
Another thing we’re remembering: Like any married couple with kids, we need our date nights and weekend getaways. We just had one and it was great. We walked around Salem, Mass., one day and drove to Hartford, Conn., the next day to see Mark Twain’s house. We traded some good project ideas in the car and took turns with the musical selection in the stereo.
Since I’ve been adding new readers along the way, I always get questions about why I started this thing. I recently expanded the “about” section, and that’s a good starting point. But more of a back story is in order.
Mood music:
Before I started THE OCD DIARIES in December 2009 with a post about depression hitting me during the holidays, I had always toyed with the idea of doing this. The reason for wanting to was simple: The general public understands little about mental disorders like mine. People toss the OCD acronym around all the time, but to them it’s just the easy way of saying they have a Type-A personality.
Indeed, many Type-A people do have some form of OCD. But for a smaller segment of the population, myself included, it’s a debilitating disease that traps the sufferer in a web of fear, anxiety, and depression that leads to all kinds of addictive behavior. Which leads me to the next reason I wanted to do this.
My particular demons gave me a craving for anything that might dull the pain. For some it’s heroin or alcohol. I have gone through periods where I drank far too much, and I learned to like the various prescription pain meds a little too much. But the main addiction, the one that made my life completely unmanageable, was binge eating.
Most people refuse to acknowledge that as a legitimate addiction. The simple reason is that we all need food to survive and not the other things. Overeating won’t make you drunk or high, according to the conventional wisdom. In reality, when someone like me goes for a fix, it involves disgusting quantities of junk food that will literally leave you flopping around like any garden-variety junkie. Further evidence that this as an addiction lies in the fact that there’s a 12-Step program for compulsive over-eaters called Overeater’s Anonymous (OA). It’s essentially the same program as AA. I wanted to do my part to make people understand.
Did I worry that I might get fired from my job for outing myself like this? Sure. But something inside me was pushing me in this direction and I had to give in to my instincts. You could say it was a powerful OCD impulse that wasn’t going to quit until I did something about it.
I write a lot about my upbringing, my family and the daily challenges we all face because I still learn something each day about my condition and how I can always be better than I am. We all have things swirling around inside us that drive us to a certain kind of behavior, and covering all these things allows me to share what I’ve learned so others might find a way out of their own brand of Hell.
I’m nothing special.
Every one of us has a Cross to bear in life. Sometimes we learn to stand tall as we carry it. Other times we buckle under the weight and fall on our faces.
I just decided to be the one who talks about it.
Talking about it might help someone realize they’re not a freak and they’re not doomed to a life of pain.
If this helps one person, it’ll be worth it.
When I first started the blog, I laid out a back story so readers could see where I’ve been and how personal history affected my disorders. If you read the history, things I write in the present will probably make more sense.
With that in mind, I direct you to the following links:
The Long History of OCD
An OCD Christmas. The first entry, where I give an overview of how I got to crazy and found my way to sane.
Snowpocalypse and the Fear of Loss. The author remembers a time when fear of loss would cripple his mental capacities, and explains how he got over it — mostly.
The Ego OCD Built. The author admits to having an ego that sometimes swells beyond acceptable levels and that OCD is fuel for the fire. Go ahead. Laugh at him.
Fear Factor. The author describes years of living in a cell built by fear, how he broke free and why there’s no turning back.
Prozac Winter. The author discovers that winter makes his depression worse and that there’s a purely scientific explanation — and solution.
Have Fun with Your Therapist. Mental-illness sufferers often avoid therapists because the stigma around these “shrinks” is as thick as that of the disease. The author is here to explain why you shouldn’t fear them.
The Engine. To really understand how mental illness happens, let’s compare the brain to a machine.
Rest Redefined.The author finds that he gets the most relaxation from the things he once feared the most.
Outing Myself. The author on why he chose to “out” himself despite what other people might think.
Why Being a People Pleaser is Dumb. The author used to try very hard to please everybody and was hurt badly in the process. Here’s how he broke free and kept his soul intact.
The Addiction and the Damage Done
The Most Uncool Addiction. In this installment, the author opens up about the binge-eating disorder he tried to hide for years — and how he managed to bring it under control.
Edge of a Relapse. The author comes dangerously close to a relapse, but lives to fight another day.
The 12 Steps of Christmas. The author reviews the 12 Steps of Recovery and takes a personal inventory.
How to Play Your Addictions Like a Piano. The author admits that when an obsessive-compulsive person puts down the addiction that’s most self-destructive, a few smaller addictions rise up to fill the void. But what happens when the money runs out?
Regulating Addictive Food: A Lesson in Futility. As an obsessive-compulsive binge eater, the author feels it’s only proper that he weigh in on the notion that regulating junk food might help. Here’s why the answer is probably not.
The Liar’s Disease. The author reveals an uncomfortable truth about addicts like himself: We tend to have trouble telling the truth.
Portable Recovery. Though addiction will follow the junkie anywhere in the world, the author has discovered that recovery is just as portable.
Revere (Experiences with Addiction, Depression and Loss During The Younger Years)
Bridge Rats and Schoolyard Bullies.The author reviews the imperfections of childhood relationships in search of all his OCD triggers. Along the way, old bullies become friends and he realizes he was pretty damn stupid back then.
Lost Brothers. How the death of an older brother shaped the Hell that arrived later.
Marley and Me.The author describes the second older brother whose death hit harder than that of the first.
The Third Brother. Remembering Peter Sugarman, another adopted brother who died too early — but not before teaching the author some important lessons about life.
The Tire and the Footlocker. The author opens up an old footlocker under the stairs and finds himself back in that old Revere basement.
Child of Metal
How Metal Saved Me. Why Heavy Metal music became a critical OCD coping tool.
Insanity to Recovery in 8 Songs or Less. The author shares some videos that together make a bitchin’ soundtrack for those who wrestle with mental illness and addiction. The first four cover the darkness. The next four cover the light.
Rockit Records Revisited. The author has mentioned Metal music as one of his most important coping tools for OCD and related disorders. Here’s a look at the year he got one of the best therapy sessions ever, simply by working in a cramped little record store.
The Rat in the Church Pew. The author has written much about his Faith as a key to overcoming mental illness. But as this post illustrates, he still has a long way to go in his spiritual development.
Running from Sin, Running With Scissors. The author writes an open letter to the RCIA Class of 2010 about Faith as a journey, not a destination. He warns that addiction, rage and other bad behavior won’t disappear the second water is dropped over their heads.
Forgiveness is a Bitch. Seeking and giving forgiveness is essential for someone in recovery. But it’s often seen as a green light for more abuse.
Pain in the Lent. The author gives a progress report on the Lenten sacrifices. It aint pretty.
At one point, I had to admit that my obsessive-compulsive demons were latching onto the Facebook friend count, and that each loss of a connection felt like a personal blow. My mind would spin endlessly about why someone felt the need to disconnect from me. Was it something offensive I did? Did I hurt someone or come off as a fake?
But I’ve come to see that sometimes it’s the right thing for a person to do. This blog covers a lot of heavy stuff. A lot of people have become daily readers and tell me my openness has inspired them to deal with their own issues. But for others, especially those with a lot of pain in their lives, every post is going to feel like a baseball bat to the head.
Then there’s the heavy volume of content that flows down my news feed, which can dominate the news feeds of people with a smaller number of connections.
I admit it: I can be very hard to live with in the House of Facebook. I’m the loud obnoxious guy who hogs the dinner table conversation.
But some of you are hard to live with, too.
— Some of you post a lot of bad music.
–Some of you complain about every little, stupid thing.
–Some of you blather on about all the big things you have going on, but you never seem to complete what you started.
–Some of you post way too many pictures of babies with food on their faces. I looove babies, but come on now.
–Some of you take self-portraits each morning with your cell phones, always from the driver’s seat of your car. That gets annoying.
–Some of you carry on with the same political whining all the time, to the point where it’s just a bunch of noise.
–Some of you can’t help but take a picture of your food. The problem is that practically no one cares what you’re about to put in your mouth.
–Some of you have fights with significant others where the rest of us can see it.
–Some of you get all lovey-dovey with your significant other where everyone can see it. That’s particularly gross.
–Some of you put up so many philosophical quotes that it all becomes a blur, just like the political whiners.
Is all that stuff worse than the things I do on Facebook? It’s all in the eyes of the beholder.
None of what I mentioned is all that bad, really. We’re all just being human.
We’ve all had to deal with difficult family members, friends and co-workers. That’s life.
In that sense, Facebook is just another mirror.
We all like to look at ourselves in the mirror, whether it’s to admire our new shoes or cringe over our girth.
But I’d like to think that most of us, despite the annoying things we do on here, are worth keeping around and even helping at times.
We’re one big dysfunctional family, and there’s a lot of fun in dysfunction if you know what to look for.
And if someone like me really gets to be too much to put up with, you know where the unfriend button is. No hard feelings.
There’s my mother. We don’t talk these days ( I covered the reasons in a post last year) but I want to thank her for doing her best with the tools she had at the time. Having kids like us wasn’t easy. I remember a lot of yelling in my house as a kid. I remember a lot of hitting, too. And a lot of tears. But I also remember her worrying about me endlessly and sitting beside my hospital bed for weeks on end as the Crohn’s Disease raged inside me, and dragging herself to her wit’s end taking care of my grandparents and great-grandmother, all of whom could be difficult. Maybe one of these days a reconciliation will happen. For now, it is what it is.
There’s Erin, my love, best friend and mother of my two beautiful children. I’ve written a lot about my wife in this blog. The best place to catch up on that is a compilation post I did a few months ago called “How Marriage Saved Me.” To say she saved me is not an exaggeration.
She gave me two beautiful sons who remind me every day that this life is not all about me. I still fail to remember that frequently, but this family has without a doubt brought me a lot closer to salvation than I ever could have hoped for without them.
She has challenged me to be the best person I can be. She never lets it slide when I act like an ass, and she is THE reason I found God. An old priest friend once said a married couple’s job is to get each other into Heaven, and she’s done more for me on that score than I have in return.
She always makes the boys’ costumes at Halloween and that is just one element of her greatness: We could just buy costumes in the store and the kids may not mind. There’s nothing wrong with buying a costume. But to Erin that’s unthinkable. For those kids, only hand-made reflections of their fertile imaginations will do. It’s the harder way, but to her it’s the better way.
It’s that kind of spirit that keeps me trying to be a better man. It’s what I should do. But it’s also what she deserves: a better me.
There’s Dianne, my step-mother.
Me and Dianne were always in conflict. As a kid I thought she was in the marriage with my Dad for his business success. I fought constantly with the step-sister she gave me. I was jealous of the step-brother she gave me because he was suddenly the cute youngest kid. Before my parents divorced it was Michael, Wendi and me, the youngest. Being sick, I was also spoiled rotten. Then the step-siblings came along and Michael died, making me the oldest son, a title that carried a lot of pressure.
I blamed it all on her. Of course, she also gave me a beautiful half sister in late 1985 who came along at just the right time, bringing joy to the family I never thought we’d see again.
Fast-forward to 2011. I’ve learned a lot over the years. One is that I was the asshole most of the time back then. I was looking for people to blame for my pain and she was too good a target to pass up. She has stuck by my father through all kinds of illness and turmoil. She loves him deeply, and worries about him constantly. I’m eternally grateful to her for that.
There’s my Step-sister Stacey, who’s a great mom to my niece and nephew, Lilly and Chase. There’s my sisters-in-law, Sara and Robin, who have given me a precious niece and nephew.
There’s my mother-in-law, Sharon, who is one of the most peaceful souls I’ve ever met. To be around her is to feel safe and loved. She brought up four beautiful daughters and she’s a natural at the role of grandma.
There are my friends who are moms: Mary, Stacey, Denise, Donna, Deb, Lauren, Linda, Betsy, Vickie, Christie and endless others. They all inspire me with the love they show for their kids. That sort of inspiration makes me strive to me better, too.
And that’s why moms are so important, no matter how much we boys may fight with them. They push us to be better.
I’m sitting at the airport in Ft. Myers, Fla. waiting to board a plane that’ll take me home. I like to go on these trips. But it’s always better to go home.
Ever since I shook myself free of the fear and anxiety that came with my earlier form of OCD, I’ve had a craving for these journeys, perhaps for the simple reason that I can go through an airport and onto a plane without feeling like nails are being hammered into my intestines.
I think there’s also a high I get from going to a security show and kicking ass with my writing (I wrote eight posts in my security blog at this latest conference). Writing conference stories used to leave me harried. No more.
I came home to a wife who was understandably angry with me. I was also sick as a dog, burning with fever. We worked through it, but it woke me up to the fact that I can’t do it all, 24 hours a day like I sometimes want to.
I needed to find the middle speed, which is hard as hell when you have an obsessive-compulsive mind and an addiction or four to keep in check.
I re-realized that I had to be truer to my top priorities: God, my wife and children. I can’t stop doing all the things I do. My life has evolved this way because, I think, I’m meant to give a part of myself to helping others. At the very least, it’s payment for the second chance God gave me.
But, to use corporate business-speak, I need to do it smarter, and be willing to drop it altogether for family. That’s one of the truly sick things about OCD: You know who and what you should be paying attention to, but the mental pull still drags you to less-important things that seem awfully important at the time.
That’s my blessing and my curse.
Right now, all I care about is seeing Erin’s face and holding her again. That may sound sappy but it’s true. I also want to hug the kids awake in the morning. I want lots of quality time with them and to take care of the things around the house Erin has been stuck dealing with on her own.
I missed some things at home this week, including seeing Duncan get dressed up as a character from a pirate book he read for a class assignment.
He and Erin made the costume together.
Erin always makes the boys’ costumes at Halloween and that is just one element of her greatness: We could just buy costumes in the store and the kids may not mind. There’s nothing wrong with buying a costume.
But to Erin that’s unthinkable. For those kids, only hand-made reflections of their fertile imaginations will do. It’s the harder way, but to her it’s the better way.
It’s that kind of spirit that keeps me trying to be a better man. It’s what I should do. But it’s also what she deserves: a better me.
Whether I’m pulling it off or not, the important thing for now is that I’m headed home. And that makes me extremely happy.
In a couple weeks there’s another security show, and it’s right in Boston. I love going to SOURCE Boston and I plan to write several advance stories about it next week.
But unlike past years, I’m skipping this one.
The kids are on vacation and have activities galore. Sean turns 10 years old that week. And it’s Holy Week. We’re devout Catholics, and the stuff at church is going to come first.
I won’t lie: It’ll be hard to miss it. I’ll miss seeing people and feeding off the energy.
But in the grand scheme of things, home is where I belong.
I see a lot of moody people out there on Facebook and Twitter these days. Though I try not to put random complaints on my wall, my darker moods often come across in this blog. But in the big picture, I’ve found ways to be generally happy despite myself.
Mood music:
Allow me to share. But first, a couple acknowledgements:
1.) I stole this post’s title from somewhere.
2.) I readily admit that despite what I’m about to share, my reality doesn’t always match up with my words.
That said, no one who knows me can deny that I’m in a much happier place today than I was several years ago. I screw up plenty today, but I used to hate myself for screwing up. Today I may feel stupid when I fail, but I don’t hate myself. I’ve also learned that there are plenty of reasons to appreciate life even when things don’t seen to be going well in the moment.
–If I’m having a bad day at work, I remember that I’ve been in jobs I hated and that while the day may go south, I’m still lucky to have a job today that gives me the freedom to do work that makes me happy. I also know that I have a wife and children that I love coming home to.
–If I’m stuck in bed with a migraine or the flu, I can take comfort in knowing it could be — and has been — so much worse.
–If I’m feeling depressed — and my OCD ensures that I will from time to time — I can take comfort in knowing it doesn’t cripple me like it used to and I can still get through the day, live my life and see the mood for what it is — part of a chronic condition.
–If I’m feeling down about relationships that are on ice, I can take joy in knowing that there’s never a point of no return, especially when you’re willing to make amends and accept forgiveness.
–When I think I’m having the shittiest year ever, I stop and remember that most years are a mix of good and bad and that gives me the perspective to cool off my emotions.
–When I’m angry about something, I can always put on headphones and let some ferocious metal music squeeze the aggression out of me.
–If I’m frustrated with my program of recovery from addiction, I just remember how I felt when I was in the grip of the disease and the frustration becomes a lot smaller.
–If I feel like people around me are acting like idiots, I can recognize that they may just be having a bad day themselves and that it’s always better to watch an idiot than be one.
Last night’s 12-Step meeting reminded me of just how hard real change is. I used to measure change by who won the next election. I’ve realized that the only real change that matters is within myself. Naturally, it’s the hardest, most brutal kind of change to achieve.
Last night’s AA Big Book reading focused on steps 8, 9 and 10:
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
The first few steps were much easier for me. Admitting I was powerless over my addiction was a piece of cake. I was so desperate by then that the admission was the reason I walked into an OA meeting. It takes desperation to walk into a room full of people you’re certain are crazy fanatical freaks. That’s exactly how they came across. Then I realized I was just like them and was in just the right place. Nearly three years in, I’ve determined that we’re not crazy and we’re not freaks. We’re just TRYING to be honest with ourselves and those around us. It makes us uncomfortable and edgy because it’s much more natural for an addict to lie. People like us are weird and often intolerable.
Acknowledging a higher power was easy enough, because I’ve always believed in God. But this step brought me closer to realizing my relationship with God was all wrong. It was transactional in nature: “Please God, give me this or help me avoid that and I’ll be good…” Because of OCD that was raging out of control, I tried to control everything. I couldn’t comprehend what it meant to “Let go and let God.” Once I got to that point it got easier, though I still struggle with a bloated ego and smoldering will.
Still, that stuff is easy compared to steps 8-10. To go to people you’ve wronged is as hard as it gets. You come face to face with your shame and it’s like you’re standing naked in front of people who have every reason to throw eggs and nails at you. At least that’s how it feels in the beginning.
I feel especially pained about my inability to heal the rift with my mother and various people on that side of the family. But it’s complicated. Very complicated. I’ve forgiven her for many things, but our relationship is like a jigsaw puzzle with a lot of missing pieces. Those pieces have a lot to do with boundaries and OCD triggers. It’s as much my fault as it is hers. But right now this is how it must be.
I wish I could make amends with the Marley family, but I can’t until they’re willing to accept that from me. I stabbed them in the gut pretty hard, so I’m not sure of what will happen there.
But there have been some unexpected gifts along the way.
Thanks to Facebook, I’ve been able to reconnect with people deep in my past and, while the need to make amends doesn’t always apply and the relationships can never be what they were, all have helped me heal. There’s Joy, Sean’s widow. She’s remarried with kids and has done a remarkable job of pushing on with her life. She dropped out of my world for nearly 14 years — right after Sean’s death — until recently. The contents of our exchange are private, but this much I can tell you: I was wrong all these years when I assumed she hated my guts and wanted nothing more to do with me. I thought my old friend Dan Waters hated my guts too. But here we are, back in touch.
Miracles happen when you get out of your own way. But it sure can hurt like a bitch.
I’ve also half-assed these steps up to this point. There’s a much more rigorous process involved. You’re supposed to make a list and only approach certain people you’ve wronged after talking to your step-study sponsor. It hasn’t exactly worked out that way. I just started the Big Book study in January, so I have a long way to go.
It’s funny how, when we’re still in the grip of our addictions, we dream of the day when we’ll be clean. There’s a false expectation that all will be right with the world. But that’s never the case.
I’ve heard from a lot of addicts in recovery who say some of their worst moments as a human being came AFTER they got sober.
That has definitely been the case for me. I’d like to think I’m a better man than I used to be, but I still screw up today. And when I do, the results are a spectacular mess.
But while I’m far from done with this stuff, I can already say I’m happier than I used to be.
Change is hard and painful, but when you can move closer to it despite that, the results are beyond comprehension.
I guess the old cliche — no pain, no gain — is true.
I’ve written a lot about her in this blog. The best place to catch up on that is a compilation post I did a few months ago called “How Marriage Saved Me.” To say she saved me is not an exaggeration. She gave me two beautiful sons who remind me every day that this life is not all about me. I still fail to remember that frequently, but this family has without a doubt brought me a lot closer to salvation than I ever could have hoped for without them. She has challenged me to be the best person I can be. She never lets it slide when I act like an ass, and she is THE reason I found God. An old priest friend once said a married couple’s job is to get each other into Heaven, and she’s done more for me on that score than I have in return.
But you’ve heard all that from me before. Right now my thoughts are of the much simpler sort. I’m thinking about some of the adventures we’ve had in our nearly 13 years of marriage.
There was the honeymoon to Ireland. We flew into Dublin, rented a car and traveled all over the country, staying at various bed-and-breakfast places along the way. I was 280 pounds and a ball of anxiety who was always worried about finding trouble around every foreign street corner. But the trip was still a dream, and my quirks didn’t drive her away. We enjoyed some romantic dinners out there, including the night in Wexford when, in a restaurant, a little girl sitting a couple tables over puked all over the floor. As the puddle expanded and the air grew foul, the wait staff just kept delivering food to various tables, stepping over the vomit instead of rushing to clean it up. It was like that sort of thing happened every day. Maybe it did.
We were more amused than horrified. I was, anyway. And the food quality improved by the time we reached the west coast of the country.
We lived in Chelmsford, Mass. for the first two and a half years of our marriage, and it was a blissful time for me. It was a lull period between emotional meltdowns. We both made shit for pay at our respective jobs, but it didn’t seem to matter at that point. She switched jobs during the Chelmsford years and worked at IDC, part of IDG, the company I work for today. I used to drive to her office in Framingham for lunch once a week, never expecting that I would work just a couple buildings away years later.
Parenthood was a huge wake-up for both of us, but she handled it a lot more gracefully than I did. She was not as panicky as I was, including on the first night Sean was home. He screamed that whole night, and I felt like the world around me was going to explode. It got better, and while Duncan’s arrival was stressful in other ways, we had a better idea of what to expect from newborns that time around. I was reminded of all this today when me and the kids went to the hospital to meet their new cousin and my new nephew, Owen. I told my brother-in-law to expect a wild first night at home with Owen, though my first impression is that he’s going to be a much quieter baby than my boys were.
We eventually learned to get away now and then. A favorite getaway spot for us has been in the Franconia Notch region of New Hampshire. Another favorite has been Newport, R.I., which is where we spent our anniversary in 2009. We went to the Newport Folk Festival, where we were introduced to the awesomeness of Gillian Welch, The Avett Brothers and The Decemberists. Not the metal I’m usually drawn to, but music I love all the same.
For our 10th anniversary we traveled some eight hours north to New Brunswick, Canada. I wanted to see the summer cottage of the Roosevelts at Campobello Island, which is where FDR was in 1921 when he was stricken with polio. It poured the whole time we were there, but we were so happy to just be together, away from it all. A couple years before that, I dragged Erin to Hyde park, N.Y. in the upper Hudson Valley because I wanted to see Springwood, FDR’s home. I’d like to think my affinity for history has rubbed off on her. My love of metal? Not so much.
Last year we had a getaway of a different sort. We put the boys in the car and drove to Washington D.C. for a private tour of the White House West Wing. We returned to the area a couple months later, though that time I was there for work. Both times we got to spend time with Erin’s Cousin Charron and her family in southern Maryland.
All these moments are what makes my life blessed, and Erin is central to it all.
I’ve said before that marriage is work, and that’s true. There are times when we get on each others’ nerves or cross the line (me much more than her). But you know what? It’s worth every second, and I love her more and more each day.
Four words repeatedly ring in my head: “You of all people.”
I of all people should be patient with Duncan. I was a problem child on a much deeper, darker magnitude than him. He’s a good boy. I should be a lot calmer when he has his meltdowns and gets uncooperative. Because I’ve been in his shoes. And yet I’m not patient with him at all.
Erin put up with a lot of grief when I was slowly melting down and needed to find treatment. She has stuck by me through the long, brutal years of therapy, religious conversion, addictive behavior and now she’s having to deal with me at the other extreme — throwing myself into insane levels of activity simply because I can now.
Yet I get impatient over her workload. Starting a freelance business from nothing is hard and sometimes crushing. I’m proud of what she’s accomplished. But the business is like a newborn child, in constant need of attention. Sometimes — more than sometimes, actually — I get jealous of the newborn.
I forget that at one point everything I did revolved around the needs of my job. She stuck it out through all the 12-hour night shifts that left me more than useless during the day. And that was with a toddler and newborn in the house.
She was patient as wave after wave of depression washed away my libido and made me a dark, brooding presence you had to walk past very carefully.
For the most part, I’ve since gotten my shit together, and now it’s time to be patient for them.
But I’m failing to do so. A lot.
You of all people.
I lost my temper with Duncan more than once this past week. We don’t hit our kids, but when we yell, we really yell. When I do, I feel terrible afterward, like the ultimate failure of a father.
When Erin has to focus in on her work or she’s too tired at the end of a long day for anything other than TV, I start to think like an ass (she doesn’t want to be with me. She no longer finds me attractive, etc.). I forget that she stuck with me for years as I failed to meet her needs. And when that point is driven home to me, I feel like the ultimate failure of a husband.
I know I’m not a failure on either of these counts, but when you let anger and uncertainty take over, you start thinking in absolutes. That’s always a bad idea.
So patience is clearly something I need to work on.
