A Familiar Aching

When I was a little girl, I loved PBS for the mere fact that several times a year when they needed to raise money they would play Anne of Green Gables all day long. I would find myself glued to the television as I watched the red-headed heroine grow from a hot tempered child to a well spoken woman. Although I had seen the tale time and time and time again, I would find myself rooting for the dashingly ordinary Gilbert to win her heart over the older, richer man who seemed to have more to offer. When the last of the 8 hr saga came to close on these unforgettable lines,

“Gilbert: I can’t promise you diamond sunbursts or marble halls…
Anne: I don’t want diamond sunbursts or marble halls, I just want you…”

this familiar feeling would come over me… or rather, overcome me. I would spend the rest of the day lost in Green Gables, wishing for red hair and profound words, and for a man to look at me with the same longing and understanding as Gilbert did as he pined after the stubborn object of his affection.

Some stories capture you and kind of never let go.

I assume most of my female readers know exactly that “feeling” I am describing even if they’ve never seen the LM Montgomery books brought to life. (but if you haven’t, please, you must)

Anyway, sometime in the last week that new/old feeling has come back. I feel it in a moment here or there and mostly I am (out of necessity) ignoring it. I feel it most clearly in the early mornings when Cohen cries of “mom-EE!” ring out from his bedroom and wake me back into the reality of my married/singlness. Sometimes its there after I come home from work and its just me and Co and a house that needs cleaned and dinner that needs made and laundry that needs washed or folded or put away. Getting rid of the TV was the right move, but I knew the quiet would get loud. Separation is a strange place to take up residence for any length of time… because the heart isn’t easily persuaded by the facts.

So I’ve been living with the facts and a mostly numb, fairly beat up heart for the last 16 months. That combination has resulted in lots of avoidance behavior… its easiest to keep moving forward if you don’t think about the pain… just breathe and keep putting one foot in front of the other. In a way, the numbness was a gift, but the more the bruises fade and the wounds heal and even grow new flesh, the harder it is getting.

Ironic, huh?

The old, familiar longings are back and while they are not bad, I have no means of fulfillment on the horizon. I wake up a single mom whose life is tied to someone who is waking up in an old spare bed across town. We share a beautiful baby boy and not much else these days. Its a weird together-but-separateness. I come home to a place that is the residence for a lonely 27 year old woman and a joyful little toddler… only. And it is going to remain that way for as far as I can see. And in the midst of gut-wrenching conversations that you hope you’ll never have and the starkness of the Truth of What Is, the longings start creeping back in.

If I still had a TV, it would be on. I might even turn it up tonight to try to drown out the desires that I can hardly seem to push aside another day.

I am not a crier. I hate to cry. If I am crying and you hug me, chances are, I will stop right away. I never cry for more than a few minute and then I pull myself together and if I get to a point where I wonder if I will need to cry longer, I turn off the tear-catalyst. I am a pretty emotional person, so I don’t know what that is in me… Beth struggles with it too…so maybe I can blame the parents? *grin* Anyway, I am a real ugly crier- everything swells up and turns red on my face and it lingers for a day or so…(the puffiness) So when I really need to cry, I break out some Patty Griffin. Her voice can make me cry even when I am not sad. I probably should write her a letter of thanks for all the tears she’s opened the door to release in me… (can you imagine? weirdest letter she’d ever get!)

Anyway, for being not-a-crier, I’ve been choking it back a lot this week. I let approximately 3 minutes of it out while driving to my grandma’s with Beth. I confessed to her this feeling… that-old –please-Gilbert-look-at-me-that-way-feeling. She didn’t say much but she knows me so I didn’t feel guilty or the need to explain.

I sat through a triple wedding shower Thanksgiving eve and loved it for my cousins and sister…everyone went around the room and shared their “how we met story”. I laughed and cried and loved it for everyone else. There wasn’t even a hint of awkwardness as I was politely skipped, which I was ultra-thankful for. One cousin, speaking to my sister in law Beck, slipped and said to me, “oh you know how that is..” (referring to her engagement) Her face screamed Oops! I am sorry! and it didn’t sting like I thought it might. But it did ache. Sort of like the ache of an empty stomach…deep and rumbling, but one that’s grown dull over time. I smiled back to let her know I was okay. And I was. And I really am happy for all of the stories of togetherness make up my history. I am. But the emptiness still lingers…

I felt it again this morning as I visited Pastor J’s blog and read the beautiful words he wrote about enjoying his wife….

Time stood still last night. Still enough that I could run my fingers across its textures and feel then subtle nuances that I had to be thankful for in my marriage. My pallet had been cleansed so that I could taste each and every little thing I love about my wife. And each thing tasted distinctly different last night.

I could taste her soul. I could taste her beauty. I could taste her words. I could taste her dreams. I could taste her affection for me. I’m sorry to say that often when I taste my wife, I have a mixture of flavors that all blend together into one generic flavor…and if I was asked what this flavor was I would say something like, “Good” or “Alright”. But last night I felt like I could taste each ingredient that makes up this beautiful creature that is “my wife”.

I read the whole post (you should too). J’s words often lodge themselves in me, but I immediately pushed back from this one. I wanted to write a nice, benign comment to let him know I appreciate he and Heidi and their marriage, but I couldn’t even linger long enough to do so because I wanted to escape the memory of even what those words looked like on the page of his blog. It wasn’t just what he said, although it was beautiful, it was that he said it.

The word “taste” written over and over again got branded on my heart in an instant and named the longing I am refusing to speak to. Its not a feeling of jealousy or even the friendlier counterpart, envy. Its a feeling of what should’ve/could’ve been. Its hope folded in layers of death. Its joy that finds its origin in something so heavy it can’t be lifted. Its uncertainty. And its haunting me…

I meandered over to a favorite blog and read the latest post which put flesh and blood and story to the whispers I am reluctantly living with these days. She’s shared her tragedy with a wisdom and beauty that has often sustained me in the last year, although our losses are not parallel. She loved and lost; she was loved and lost. She had a moment to hold him and see his features and stroke his cheek, fleeting as it were. I have the emptiness of what was not. Just the same loss is loss. When I read her words, I feel them…

This blog is so personal, I am even debating the worthiness of putting it out for eyes other than my own. I am at the ending of writing this and re-reading it, I wonder if I really said anything I meant to say or if there’s just so much in there that I haven’t scraped the surface..either way it feels very vulnerable and yet very incomplete. I am tempted to be concerned you might think I mean one thing when I mean another, but I don’t have the energy for editing tonight. So give me the benefit of the doubt that there are some things I wouldn’t talk about online, ok?

If you want to say something personal or detailed, you can email me. Otherwise, would you just pray for me? I want to be a righteous and upright woman. I want to do the right thing and think righteous thoughts. I want to come alive again, whatever that means. I don’t want to forsake God’s will for my own desires, and yet, I hope God will honor them in some way…

I can’t really put words to this, though I have tried. I don’t even know how to ask anyone to pray for something I can’t define. Just the same I covet your intercession, friends.