Literary healing
Posted on June 13, 2008
Filed Under marriage, praise, milestones, My Better Half, challenges, friendship, heartbreak, sadness, thanks |
I need to say a heartfelt thanks to you all who have been so kind and supportive these last few weeks. There is some shame and some gamble in letting it all hang out there, to call it what it is and hope that no one reading here will pass judgment on my decision to share the deeply personal aspects of my life. I wrestle with just how much to say here because I know there are a few readers who MBH and I know on a social and personal level and their knowing of the fragile space we inhabit as a couple might make us unattractive dinner guests.
But this is my place, a place a to write and connect and heal and vent and, so, social engagements be damned, I need my blog friends right now. And so here I am trying for candor while hoping to maintain some level of respectful discretion. It’s a fine line I’m walking. I know. But literary people hurt literarily (though I’m quite sure that’s not a word, I know it’s a state of mind). To not put this process into prose would be counterproductive for me. If I can see it on the page, it can begin to make sense. At least that’s my hope.
And the responses, the comments, the e-mails and the willingness of those who I’ve known in this space for a few years now to offer me their personal time, to offer a phone call, an objective ear and the symbolic shoulder of quiet support, has been an overwhelming boost to me. I know that like minded people gravitate toward one another, like kindred souls who end up in the same book stores, who frequent the same restaurants because they both adore the french onion soup, the blogosphere acts as a much more infectious and effective facilitator. We end up at each others’ blogs nodding our heads in sympathetic recognition, laughing, sharing, weeping through the complexities of this collective life.
It’s a humbling experience to be able to emote in this forum and to have that emotional outlay met with infinite understanding and little bits of wisdom. It’s as if a dear friend hears your call, your plea, even your quiet little whimpers and comes rushing over with a pint of ice cream and The English Patient on DVD and you sit side by side watching one of the greatest love stories of all time while eating Chunky Monkey from carton and wiping your noses on your shirt sleeves - that’s what this blogging thing is for me - comfort and acceptance and the knowledge that others, others with wisdom and intellect and darn good stories to tell, have also endured all manner of shit and lived to tell about it (unless of course your the husband in the English Patient who decided to fly his plane into a sand dune instead of doing the hard work which is required to achieve “lived to tell about it” status).
And while no one can say a damn thing that makes it all better, there is something very powerful in your verbal acuity, your willingness to recognize and acknowledge my situation as familiar or acceptable and to even share your personal anecdotes about your own marital difficulties. I am forever grateful for your cyber-companionship. I see people on a daily basis who do not know me anywhere near as well as you all know me because they do not know my mind.
This blogging thing makes for odd and unorthodox friendships but they are real and important connections that deserve to be acknowledged.
And so I leave you with some wise words I found in my in-box earlier this week as an example of the very thing that gets me through the day,
CCE, Your situation has been brewing for some time and has had a million tiny moments and choices to get you here. It is going to take time to deconstruct the myriad rudders to find which one, or which combination, will turn things again. I still maintain that you’ll inevitably find yourself doing the slow work of constructing a narrative for your life that’s going to put everything else in perspective. I don’t know what that is but I know it’s bigger than you and more than now. And I still say that faith that things will work out may well be the thing that, in the end, makes things work out.
Tiny moments, choices, slow construction, perspective, faith, bigger than you, more than now…all good things to ponder at this juncture. Thank you.
And, as an aside, I told you the peonies were primed to bloom. The picture included here is just a sample of what’s exploding in my garden this week. For that and for all of you, I am thankful.
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