I Want to Go Home

I had a dream the other night that all my belongings were in my car (along with a bunch of money I don't really have). My boys and I were driving along a country road just outside of one of the midwestern towns where I grew up. We didn't know where we were going to stay, but happened upon a little cafe with a welcoming glow and live music spilling out it's open door. With nowhere else to go, we entered the establishment and soaked up the friendly ambiance.

Staying until closing, I stepped out the door confident that it had been worth taking this little break, even if it meant sleeping in the car tonight. That's when the shocker came....

An empty curb...

             ...where my loaded car had been. 

I woke up and stared at the ceiling, looking past the teenage boy-band posters on the wall of the room in which my air mattress found it's temporary station. My youngest daughter was there with me, my sons were still asleep on the hide-a-bed in the next room, and my car was parked safely in the driveway, loaded down with our junk, like in the dream (but without the imaginary cash). I was grateful. We were not sleeping on the streets, and at least the four of us were under the same roof for the time-being.

The dream, however, haunted me throughout the day yesterday. Was it merely the expression of my fears of this displacement going on until we've used up our welcome and have nowhere to turn, or did it have some deep meaning or warning I need to heed? 

As I drove back to the place I was staying last night, I thought about how a few hours earlier the fact that I had extracted certain files from my house (so that I didn't have to worry about Todd rifling through them or destroying them) had brought me such comfort. The comfort suddenly shifted to an extreme feeling of vulnerability. Those files were in my vehicle. As the dream had demonstrated, a vehicle is not the safest storage place. And there are other keys to this vehicle. My mind started running through questions about where those other keys were. I knew I had hidden some of them, but might my older daughters have left one in a place where Todd could find it? Another event multiplied these feelings of vulnerability: 

A few hours earlier, my youngest daughter had called me in total panic. "Daddy is here," she had said. She was at church youth group, a place that has been a haven of safety for her, and he showed up with a friend whose daughter was playing in the band. I texted his friend, who apparently knew nothing about our "little problems" and had just brought Todd along to see the band play. My daughter just left, but she was shaken up by this safe place being invaded by the nightmare she had fled. Todd's friend had no clue what was going on and told him about my text (which alerted him to the fact that our daughter was indeed there and had seen him and had a problem with it.) Todd texted our daughter, saying, "I'm sorry, I didn't know you would be there. I hope we can work this out."

She told me this on the phone as I was driving. "I hope we can work this out..." I thought, If you really want to do that, just getting out of the house so we can go home would go a long way.

I'm wondering if I should tell him that? Maybe that would give him false hope -- as in thinking that that and going to counseling are an automatic recipe to get back "his life." He probably doesn't even realize how far beyond "a long way" we have to go for him to even gain a sliver of trust.

Something's got to give, though. My biggest questions are: How much more do I say (if anything) before getting a restraining/kick-out order? Do I tell him that's going to happen in advance, or surprise him with it? 

I want to go home and have a comfortable, safe place for my kids where we can function and live.

The Different Faces of Love (The Moon, the Crazy Moon, part 3)

This started out as a response to a comment on my last blog, but it was getting so lengthy, I decided to just post it as a separate blog. It may only make sense in the context of my last blog, though, so you might want to go back and read that (and the comment) if you haven't.

-----

Perhaps it all boils down to me being an abysmal communicator (that may have been my problem then, just as it is now). . . or perhaps it's the dramatist in me, embellishing in the wrong way--adding a flare of romance to the story when it's really a different sort of love I'm speaking of. I mush it together in my description because there are similarities, but really what I'm talking about is more like the love and loss I felt with my sister and when she passed away, and yet my own failure with words paints it as something silly. It may be that I'm thinking too much of an audience--what words could I use that they would understand? I can get caught up in the idea of trying to word something in a clever way, a universal way--such pride, however, is not conducive to successful communication.*

Call it two-faced, but I feel misunderstood. And I'm using the backspace key a lot now in trying to explain. How should I expect my words to be clear enough for my readers understand me, when it's all still so much in process? I don't even understand me. Does denying that you have questions and making haste to cover the holes over with the quickest biblical patch to be found make one's God bigger?

I feel like I'm being pushed to action out of the expectations of others that I figure it all out already and DO something. That probably wasn’t your intention, but that’s how it felt. Why is reality so hard for me? What reality? How can reality be hard when you don't know what it is? It's the inability to identify reality that is hard. Of course, I could simplify it by ignoring the intricacies--the threads that don't line up with a particular presumption of neat, tidy fabric. But that, in my opinion, would be the sign of a belief in a small god.

Yes, the recent line of questioning with Doug may be a distraction, but I wouldn't call our friendship a sideshow. It's a distraction just like maneuvering all the kids' birthday celebrations, skinned knees, and last-minute homework and costume needs is a distraction. It's a distraction like my parents' waning health and a friend who needs help moving is a distraction. It's a distraction like the stopped up sink is a distraction. Life is full of distractions. True, the way I've worded things in the three blogs in which I've talked about Doug may make it seem like I've been obsessing, but the reality is, we have a deeper history than I have even come close to putting into words here. If anything, I’ve given voice to an over-active imagination in the “he hates me” or “he doesn’t care” side of it.

When I read “You are acting like you are trying to solve some hidden hurt, but you are justifying flirting with another man who is not the one you are pretending to be yoked to. You can't honestly love someone from that long ago to whom you have never lived with or spent much actual physical time with. Love is more than fatal attraction, or fantasy boyfriend love affairs of the mind,” that hurt. Don't stop commenting, though. Hurt is okay. We grow through it. And do keep praying that my eyes will be open, because that has been my prayer, and I do believe in the power of prayer and since I have also been praying that God would reveal to me any ways in which I’m deceiving myself, I believe He will.

What may have been missed in that blog, probably due partially to the Moonstruck references (which are about a romantic love), is the longevity and depth of the friendship history Doug and I have (and the connections he has with my family as well), and the fact that if a close female friend or one of my brothers or parents would have come to me with the same news that Doug shared yesterday, it would have sent me reeling in the same way. To me, all love is important.

It’s interesting timing that yesterday a boy came to ask Todd and I permission to date one of our daughters. The term “just friends” came up in the discussion--they no longer wanted to deny that they were more than “just friends.” I cautioned them about the logic behind that term, saying that romantic love, if it is not built on a firm foundation of friendship, will actually grow into something that is “less than friendship.” The love between friends is not something to be trivialized, and it can in fact have a more enduring quality than love that is contorted to fit the mold of romance.

Even though I wanted to know if romance was the cause of the dark period between Doug and me, I am NOT interested in romance with him now. Our friendship has weathered too great a length of time and too many storms of life to ruin in that way. Even if it seems like an excuse to some who read this, my main reason for digging and wanting to know that part of the past truly was because of the questions about relationships that my daughters have been asking me. I want to understand, so my advise to my girls will not be born out of my own dysfunctional confusion. I take it as an answer to prayer that even when one of my daughters broke up and another started a new relationship, in the midst of my own personal struggles and without me having yet found “the answers to that dark pivotal day in my past,” I was still able to offer them what I think was wise counsel. Maybe I don’t have to know the specifics of what happened back then in order to be able to find mental and emotional health now.

The appearance of silliness confirms to me that some ground is better not to be dug up because it stirs the flighty emotions of that time period. (Yes, I did get a bit caught up in it.) Doug and I have grown past that--there is no need to bring it back up--that was proved when I was able to talk to my daughters with confidence. Also, I don’t want to confuse Doug by stirring up emotions from the past that he has already worked through, so I will be careful what I say from here on out. Maybe I feel like that wounded little girl more because of my current hurts than because of anything “back then.” I will try to not let the past distract me from dealing with the issues of now, mainly the issues with Todd, but I don’t think God would have me deny the impact of a dear friend who is facing a very serious disease--that is also in the present. You would understand that he is very much like a brother, if I were to share our full history.

Hey--that just made me think of a slightly silly, yet related, little side-note:

When I was in elementary school, I had crushes on at least two of my cousins. I even said with certainty that I was going to marry one of them. All these years later, I can interact with those cousins at family reunions and there isn’t any weirdness or shame or romantic attraction, but I still love them... and I grieved when one of them was very sick... and I rejoiced when the surgery he required was successful... I sobbed when he lost one of his own children...

Love affects us that way.

It doesn’t have to be romantic (and it may actually help if it isn’t romantic). So, I’m sorry if anyone judges me for expressing my love for Doug. I was probably misleading in connecting the Moonstruck clips. The wording of that statement about love just gets me, and I tend to apply it to all sorts of love. When you love someone, they are capable of driving you crazy--there is a much deeper truth to that than what we see on the surface of Loretta’s mom’s words. My love for my dad drives me crazy. If I didn’t love him and desire his love, it wouldn’t drive me crazy when his words and actions lead me to believe that he is more proud of my brother than he is of me. Talk about issues--I’ll have to blog on that someday. Any mother knows that her love for her children can drive her crazy. And, I can't even tell you how long it took to be able to function again after the sister I loved passed away. Love can drive you crazy.

Anyway, if you’re able to get past the apparent “inappropriateness” of me admitting that I “love” Doug (realizing that it may not mean to me the same thing that it does to everyone else), I would appreciate you saying a prayer for his health. The initial blow when I got the news wasn’t like, “oh no, I’m going to lose my fantasy boyfriend if the cancer takes him!” It was more the fear of going through what I went through with my sister again. Not another sibling! Selfish, I know, but I’d rather be the next one to die than have to see another loved one go through such a painful end.

* At the risk of drawing more parallels with films that confuse, I'd like to share a clip from a favorite that touches on the complexity of love. Not saying that it has anything to do with the kind of love I was referring to--just that love is not always as neat and tidy as we'd like it to be.

Richard to Clarissa: “Oh Mrs. Dalloway, always giving parties--to cover the silence....I wanted to write about it all, everything that happens in a moment...all our feelings, yours and mine, the history of it, who we once were, everything in the world, everything all mixed up--like it’s all mixed up now. And I failed. I failed. No matter what you start with it ends up being so much less-- sheer f-ing pride and stupidity. We want everything, don’t we?”

The Awful Fear of Loss (The Moon, the Crazy Moon, part 2)

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about how I took a scalpel to an old emotional wound, opening it up in hopes of bringing healing.

I took the risk and asked my friend Doug to help bring clarity to a decades' old misunderstanding between the two of us. When his first reply didn't satisfy my curiosity, I pried further. Then waited. The more time passed with no reply, the more my imagination went to dark places, chiding me for being so foolish to have bared my soul.

My note had left off with:

"I don't know if I've ever confessed to you that I was often rather intentionally contrary with you. In a world where people are constantly battling over their differences, it's weird to say that it was our lack of differences that frightened me. I thought that if I were to admit that I liked too many things that you also liked that I would appear like one of those ditsy, game-playing girls who I had so little respect for... and so, when you said you liked something that I adored, I'd often down-play my admiration... and likewise I was perhaps a bit overboard about those things we disagreed on (food, for example).

"In that way, I guess you could say that good came out of the crumbling apart of our friendship, because I did learn that when you care about someone transparency is important--I should have trusted that the over-all complexity of who we are would be enough to prevent any apparent 'overly-compliant' aspects from being interpreted as fake.

"How stupid of me to BE a fake so as to avoid looking like a fake! Talk about feeding confusion. But have I really learned that lesson if I still find it hard to admit the biggest thing that I never dared to be transparent with you about--the thing that I was so certain would make you not want to be my friend any more? Hmm... I can't claim that I was immature then (as if it's any different from now) if I'm still unwilling to admit 20+ year old feelings for fear of ruining a friendship.

"Yep, I'm still an immature, insecure, fraidy-cat. But all that is self-centered. I don't want to be self-centered. I want to be transparent. I say that all the time, and then I draw my curtains... hesitating because I over-think everything. Could transparency itself be selfish??? What if there are truths I long to speak that others don't want to hear? What if speaking such things destroys the environments others have build for themselves and like?

"I'm sorry to bring you into my madness, [Doug]. These are things I probably just have to figure out for myself--things I shouldn't be burdening anyone else with. Rather than explanation or clarification, all I should really be asking for is prayer--prayer that God would strengthen me according to His word. He is able. I really do believe He is able. I just need Him to help my unbelief. And to know that when my heart melts with heaviness it is safe only as it flows into His hands.

"Thank you for tolerating me after all these years. Someday I'd like to tell you more of the things wiped out by the stroke of a back-space key, things regarding one of my dearest friendships that I keep veiled by a curtain of fear. I know that perfect love casts out fear--why must I be so far from perfection?"

Days went by, then weeks . . . and no reply. I started to take it as confirmation that the friendship was a lot more lop-sided than I'd been willing to admit. I even started imagining that I had been little more than a pawn in a plot of folly and mixed messages, the punchline of a cruel joke. That's why life could go on for Doug, smoothy, comfortably, while I was desperately itching at my scabs.

Today, I got a message from Doug. He said he sent the note because we needed to "keep the dialogue alive." Then, he went on to tell me that about 10 days ago, he went to the doctor because of a mole that had obviously changed. The doctor agreed with his concern and excised it. And today, the pathology report came back as a full-blown melanoma. "The good news," he said, was that "the depth of it was less than one cm--about a third of that." He explained that if it had been deeper, "it would have been serious, with more excision and pulling lymph nodes under the arm and all that."

His good news didn't sound good to me. One-third of a centimeter sounded way too deep, so I looked it up online and learned that anything deeper than a millimeter is of great concern because that is when it's deep enough to reach blood vessels and be spread to other parts of the body. It took a while for me to even be able to write a single line in reply. I was reeling. I couldn't stand the thought of the worst case scenario (which I have already seen play out in the lives of several people close to me.) Most of the people I have known with melanoma haven't survived. And now I was faced with the possibility of loosing someone to whom I couldn't even admit my true feelings for fear of them being taken as "inappropriate."

Finally I managed to ask him to please tell me that he meant to say "mm" instead of "cm." I sent the message, but then I had to get away to a quiet place. Todd had just returned from the store, and the boys kept demanding my attention, so I snuck out to the van in the driveway and hid in the back seat where I returned a call to a dear friend. It was helpful talking it out with her, but I was away from the computer, so I didn't check for Doug's reply until about an hour later. Oh, the relief to see that he had indeed made a typo. He meant "mm" not "cm". That still doesn't guarantee that he's in the clear, but the prognosis is A LOT better.

Needless to say, my chest has done some of those crazy contortions today. Like her mother said in reply to Loretta's declaration that she loved Ronny Cammareri something awful, "Oh God, that's too bad!" and "When you love them, they drive you crazy." (Moonstruck, 1987)

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation." (C.S. Lewis - Four Loves)

The Moon, the Crazy Moon

I felt that pain in my chest today. Not the kind associated with medical maladies, but rather that deep sobbing that may not even make a sound, but it feels like it's capable of turning you inside-out. Was it something Todd said? you may ask. No. Not at all. Todd has hurt me but he has never moved me to tears like this. This was the rare tug--the pull of true loss. I felt it at my sister's funeral, and I felt it when I was driving home after Charlie and I split up, while his child was still growing inside my womb.

What would bring about such internal contortion? Nothing Todd could say or do. I'm growing immune to his prodding. I think that comment he made a few weeks ago, "I didn't say 'we,'" in reference to moving back to the midwest, coupled with his accusation the following day that I had intentionally fainted at our wedding to get out of saying the vows combined to form the last straw. He can tick me off or annoy me... but really move me? Not so much.

What was it, then? I guess you could call it another silly self-therapy move. I wonder if I could get my own show on the DIY network.

I was reading excerpts from the book, Living with the Passive-Aggressive Man, and I started to feel really paranoid. I ran from room to room, closing the blinds on the windows and making sure the doors were locked, disassembled every smoke detector and heating vent to be sure there weren't any hidden cameras, dissected the phones in search of bugs, and peered into each closet (and the refrigerator) looking for spies. How could Scott Wetzler, Ph. D. know so much about what goes on in our house without the assistance of surveillance technology? What I read planted a tiny suspicion in my head... the thought that the problem between Todd and me is not completely about me being "crazy and impossible to talk to." Maybe I wasn't just imagining the mind game olympics that have been leaving me confused and feeling emotionally spent.

But then I went back to the log-eye thing.

Don't think of yourself more highly than you ought, I told myself. Todd's not the only one who has accused you of being an awful person, Bridget. Maybe it's true.

My mind went back more than a couple decades to that fateful, pivotal day when Doug told me everything that was wrong with me in one sitting. He didn't want to spend time with me anymore. It was over. Every time I walked by his best friend on campus, I'd hear him mutter the words, "hateful" or "Jezebel." Accusations like that don't just spring out of thin air, do they? Way back when this was happening, I confronted Doug's friend, asking him why he called me those things. All I was ever able to get out of him was that I had hurt Doug. When I tried to get him to tell me how, all he would say was, "at least you weren't married."

All of these years, that whole series of events has been confusing to me. I still don't know what happened. I still don't know what I did to hurt Doug. I've suspected that he liked me as more than a friend and he took my lack of response to his hints as a rejection, but I've never confirmed that. As those of you who have been following this blog know, Doug and I have been reconciled for quite a while. We're actually good friends now. But I still never figured out what went wrong way back then. He chalks it up to "we were young... naive... immature..." That's never really been enough clarity for me, but you can only dig so much when the others involved are pouring concrete and constructing buildings on the spot in question. I've let it go, wanting to know more every time one of my kids comes to me seeking advice on similar situations of the heart, but knowing that the only way to find out would be to come right out and ask him... which I still guess I fear might scare him away (I may also be a little afraid of what a blow it would be to my self esteem if I were to find out after all these years that he never did like me as anything more than just a friend, and that I was delusional to think that that was what had hurt him.)

Anyway, I finally did it yesterday. I finally broke down and told him that I really need to know what it was that I did, didn't do, said, or didn't say that caused him such great hurt that he didn't want to be around me anymore back then. What did I think knowing would accomplish after all these years? I may not have really known when I sent the message, but it couldn't be un-sent. As the day went by, I came to realize that it was, at least in part, self-sabotage--fishing for ammunition to use against myself. Perhaps he would raise accusations that would collude with what Todd says about me, confirming that I really am an awful person. You see, on the flip side of wondering how it was that I hurt Doug, part of me has always wondered IF I really hurt him... or if it was really just part of a game. He had spent time with me when he didn't have anyone else to spend time with, and then, when our mutual "friend" who was interested in dating him came into the picture, he tired of me, and the "you hurt me" story was just a convenient way to get rid of me. For all I know, that's just as likely to be true as the he had a crush on me delusion.

He did write back. And what he said didn't bring any more clarity.

"i appreciate the fact that you're trying to work through some really aweful pieces of our mutual past. however, i honestly can't remember any feelings about you that would have caused me to react to you in the way you described.

"here is my conclusion: like many people, i was a very confused and certainly a very insecure person. as we've discussed, i had my own issues with [our mutual friends]. i'm sure this included trying to impress them to the point of trying to make myself look like someone i wasn't--to the extent of acting out the immense insecurity that still haunts me to this day.

"knowing [the guy who called me "hateful"] as i did, he (like me) was often sarcastic and enjoyed the folly of mixed messages. i honestly cannot make any connection between you and the biblical jezebel in my wildest accounts and interpretation of what was going on back then. everything seemed to be about being funny, getting the laughs, and actually feeding each other in ways that were never conducive to real friendship or mutual understanding. the reality is, if we had the tools, we didn't apply them to all relationships to make them what they needed to be. rather, we did what we needed to do to make certain relationships work.

"if you were to see [those old mutual friends] right now, you wouldn't recognize them. they both have grown into truly godly, really terrific people, and the stuff we knew 26-plus years ago is no longer part of who they are. in fact, if we were to broach it, they, too, would likely be embarrassed and even repentent. i suspect that this would be the necessary connector for you: knowing that we all were young and immature, which doesn't necessarily cover over the multitude of sins, but helps to bring understanding for what we may continue to feel.

"here's a start. i'm happy to keep this going in processing through with you."

And I did reply to that message, but I'm not holding my breath in anticipation of anything that will bring any more clarity at all. It was while I was writing that reply that my chest did the contorting on me--while I was imagining all the horrible truths that could come out if I kept digging.

What will I do if he does at some point reveal to me that my suspicions of our friendship having always been a whole lot more lop-sided than I was willing to admit are true? I suspect it will be more of those deep chest contortions... hurting something awful... but it will be worth it to have the truth, right?

On another note, to celebrate my anniversary (a day late and alone) I watched a movie called Ira and Abby. It's a pretty cynical look at marriage, and therapy . . . How fitting!

Love this exchange:

Abby: Do you have a girlfriend?

Ira: No, I have a fear of perishables.

For some reason, as soon as it finished, I thought of the lines about marriage in Moonstruck:

Ma: Do you love him, Loretta?

Loretta: Ma, I love him awful.

Ma: Oh God, that's too bad.

It's kind of a relief that I don't love Todd awful. It's kind of a comfort to be numbed to that pain in the chest.

Strength from Safety

I've been fluctuating a lot this week. The past has shown me the damage that can be done by impulsive action, so, even though an accusing voice in my head calls me weak for not "doing something," I think where I am right now is searching for clarity. Seeing clearly is essential if I am to make wise decisions, and presently there is too much confusion.

I've been praying for wisdom. While researching a project, I stumbled upon an article on divorce that seemed to verify the sense that I've had of being deserted.

http://www.beliefnet.com/Love-Family/Relationships/2007/06/Let-There-Be-Divorce.aspx

I'll have to look back on the actual vows that Todd and I agreed to (even if I actually didn't say the vows, as Todd alleges, he said them... I think). I wonder if there was any mention of provision in the vows of the church we were married in. However it was worded, I think it's pretty obvious that there has been some vow-breaking in both directions here.

All that said, I don't question my right to divorce. That isn't the issue. The issue is whether or not I should assert that right.

"All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not all things edify."

1 Corinthians 10:23

The world does not revolve around me. There are others to be considered. I don't want to be responsible for causing another to stumble because of my own selfish actions. That's the bigger picture. That doesn't mean I should be a doormat or an enabler... but it does mean that I'd better be good and sure that I have examined my own heart.

I've often said that the world would be a better place if people would put more emphasis on their responsibilities than their rights. I know my rights. What I'm seeking clarity on now is my responsibility. Unlike the impression that I've gotten from Todd, I know that responsibility is not a burden, but rather a wonderful opportunity to fulfill what we are designed to do. Part of the reason Todd has been miserable for so much of his life is because he doesn't embrace the opportunity of responsibility. Living with him, and feeling neglected, I too must admit having fallen into that trap. "Todd's not going to contribute or sacrifice, so why should I?"

After my last blog posting, a dear, true friend admonished me:

I really think that the cat is out of the bag! He has not verbalized the ending to his story until now, cuz he knows that you will not be interested in it. SO he is passively leading you down the road to his ending, with no options. You seem to instinctively know the end he had in mind and in your own denial were stalling and hoping that God would save you or provide a different ending. I think you need to speak your desire out loud! You have to “call it out”! you have to speak the truth in love and tell him NO! his ending would be suicide for you…..your dream, the one you were made for has gotten off track. He is abusing you to live his dream, with no consideration for yours. I predict he will blame you with your own religion. I believe he will brow beat you with the Bible verses. You have to believe that they are lies and manipulations. I think you have been very very patient and actually enabling him all these years. I think in order to be guilt free, you have to start to call this stuff out into the open. You need some Back up plans though. I did have to leave a couple of times, I did not have a full blown plan, but I did have to call it out! I felt I had to give [my husband] a chance to make the right choice. I think you have to tell him flat out, that you are not interested in his ending. I do not think you should be afraid. I also think that you need to get a better understanding on the legal system.... [This] is a no fault state. I think you need to freeze your assets before he bankrupts you and then splits to his dad’s. DON”T LAY DOWN! Or faint!

The thing that stood out to me was the idea of giving Todd a chance to make the right choice. Calling out my desires. Let him know that I'm not interested in the ending he is headed toward. I feel like I've done that, but have I done it specifically enough and clearly enough? It's not even so much an issue of his dreams vs. mine. When I read her words, "He is abusing you to live his dream, with no consideration for yours", I thought that wasn't exactly true. It's more like he's so afraid of pursuing his own dreams that he's settling, and he's pulling me down with him.

He may have a dream of a life of ease back where he grew up, but deep down inside I believe he realizes what a fantasy that is. He knows that moving back home would mean the death of his dreams, too, but he's too afraid to do anything else. Because of this, I wonder if the "calling out" I really need to do is the pointing out of how he is throwing his own dreams away and insisting that I'm not willing to go down that path. It would be unloving for me to let him commit emotional suicide by giving up without a fight.

What if the best way to make him fight for what is important to him is to leave him? That is possible. What's keeping me from doing it?

Well, in the midst of my growing resolve to quit being an enabler and to be more proactive, circumstances have taken another sudden turn. I've heard it said that there are certain stressful circumstances during which you shouldn't make big life-altering decisions (things like hormonal fluctuations of pregnancy or menopause, grieving over a lost loved one, extreme sleep-deprivation, etc.) After the Charlie fiasco, I've tried not to repeat that decision-making faux pas. In fairness, I can't ask Todd to do that either.

A few months ago, Todd lost his mom. No longer having the "other woman" controlling his life has been a change that I can see could be positive in the long run as far as growing up goes. She was an incredible enabler--sending him checks to cover our mortgage and bills more than he ever admitted to me. His dad has helped out, too, but he's not as regular with his support, so we have been struggling more since his mom passed away. That led me to pose the question to a friend: "If it has been Todd's parents, and not Todd, who have been providing for us all these years... when they both pass away will that make me a widow?" Well, just days after asking that, Todd's dad landed in the hospital. Things are pretty chaotic right now, but one thing that is questionable is if his dad will be able to go home alone. He's just about used up his allowed time in the hospital, and will be transferring to a rehabilitation home across the street from the hospital in a few days. It's uncertain if he will ever be able to go home on his own.

I do not want my [alleged child-molester] father-in-law moving in with us, but I also don't want to move out of state to be with him, so I did suggest the idea that if he needs our help, it would be easier for us if he were to relocate than for us to relocate. He's not a very social person and he's out-lived most of the friends he had, so he wouldn't miss nearly as many people as we would if we were forced to move (including our adult and soon-to-be-adult children who certainly would not follow us out of state)... and since he's retired, it wouldn't make sense for us to be the one's moving away from schools and better job opportunities. I wish Todd could spend some time with his father, but we don't have the money for him to fly or drive out there, and we definitely can't afford for him to walk away from the work he has right now (since it's such a rarity). Our son made the comment that it's too bad we don't have more money so Daddy can just go back and stay with Grandpa for a while. He has no idea how much Mommy wishes we could afford that, too. I think him being away for a while right now might be a very good thing. He could see if he is able to find work back there. He could see if going home really would make him happy. And doing so might make the transition easier if we aren't going to make it.

I'm really not afraid of him bankrupting us nearly as much as I'm afraid of being stuck with a man I cannot respect. Last Sunday's sermon text--wouldn't you know it--came from Ephesians 5. If I'm convicted by my inability to respect, shouldn't he also be convicted by his shirking of loving me "as Christ loved the church and laid down his life for her"? The ultimatum, if it comes down to that, is that he has to grow up and take some responsibility. "I don't know what to do," just won't cut it anymore. How do I tell him that he'd better figure it out? And is now the appropriate time?

If it is decided that his dad will not be moving home, we may be faced with the challenge of what to do with his dad's house sooner than I expected. That could be an opportunity for growth. Will he try to hold on to an unneeded house for sentimental reasons while teetering on the edge of loosing our family home? (We've been waiting a long time for him to "leave his mother and father and cleave unto his wife"). Will he work with his dad to sort through the years of accumulated stuff and sell the house or rent it out? Or will he insist on moving back there so his dad can stay in the house a little longer, even if it means going alone?

If it does come to some sort of ultimatum, it will either have to be in writing, or with some sort of mediation. I don't feel emotionally safe conversing with Todd about these things. It has never turned out well in the past. Is it a sign of weakness to admit that I don't feel safe?

Not feeling safe... That makes me think of another little (slightly odd) thing that I almost blogged about last week:

There is one television show that I'm addicted to. Fringe. Anyone who follows the show knows that Peter and Olivia have loved each other for some time, but have struggled with connecting largely because of Olivia's fears. In last week's episode, Olivia was in danger because the deceased William Bell (Leonard Nemoy) had taken over her body and what was supposed to be a temporary situation threatened to permanently displace Olivia as her consciousness became "lost." The team was forced to take LSD and go into her mind in search of Olivia (gotta love Sci-Fi!) Anyway, after traveling through an Inception-like world that even included cartoons and zombies, Peter was finally able to find Olivia by figuring out the last place she had ever felt safe. Even though she ultimately had to save herself, the strength to do so came from discovering that safe place within her. When she came to, she was like a new person, free and safe for the first time in years. As I watched the conclusion of that silly little episode, a wave of emotion washed over me, and I thought, Oh how I wish I could find my safe place!

Where it gets interesting is this week, when we were watching the following episode, there was a scene near the beginning in which Olivia wakes up in Peter's arms. She is content and happy like her character has never before been. In that instance, Todd said, "They finally figured it out, didn't they?" I'm sure he would like to awaken in the bliss that Peter did, with a woman who loves and respects him in his arms. If only he could understand that a big reason that isn't happening is that with him, I struggle to find a safe place where I can be truly honest. I am like Olivia, wounded and hiding.

"This is my letter to the world, That never wrote to me,-- "

The words of Emily Dickinson echo my sentiments at the moment. This blog has been such a good release. That was the main reason to make it in the first place--to have a place for such release, a journal that cannot be found by those in my household for whom I would feel the need to edit my true thoughts and feelings.

Even though I don't want those who know me personally to read this online diary, I'm finding that I do long for an audience... someone to hear my heart, to read my words, to offer feedback that might help me to clarify the jumbled stuff pouring out of my crippled heart... someone to seek after me when I "disappear" (as I have the tendency to do in real life, and now I have also done so here.)

Yes, I've been hiding, even from this secret place. I've been nowhere. Hiding from hiding. Hands over my eyes, refusing to even peek at the world. Too numb to attempt engagement with a world that "doesn't write to me." Something happened, but it's not really the something that happened that sent me deeper into hiding. That something is closer to being an excuse than a true driving force. What happened?

A friend, not close--but friend nonetheless--
was taken from the world a couple weeks ago.
Suddenly.
They call it an accident, but that doesn't make sense to me.
Even though it's inexplicable, it cries out meaning...
Meaning beyond my understanding is meaning still.
I am so overwhelmed by the immensity of the gorge
between my understanding and all there is.
My words, so insignificant,
Trickle like rogue dribbles from cracks in a hose.

All I can say is:
"This is my letter to the world,
That never wrote to me,-- "
Would you write?
to me?
.