Twelve years ago today, when I was 25, I sacrificed normal to love. I didn’t really understand what I was doing, but I did it. Relatives and friends thought I was insane to fall in love with and marry someone who was going to be so damned precarious.
God, yes, it was insane, and fueled by this monster of pride that made me think that I was somehow more noble, more caring, stronger, tougher than the rest of them. I would show them! Oh, I would show them.
And I did.
It warped me. My usual became death, waiting for it, fighting it off, thinking about it all the damned time. I became a person consumed by fear, a person clawing and desperate to hold on to pain if it just meant we were both alive. (I wrote in a poem about how the painful smell of a skunk says “I’m alive! I’m alive!”) Fear means there’s something to be afraid for, something to lose.
We didn’t have a normal. I never got to have the same dreams other people had, of old age in my husband’s arms, of travel or adventure, or even just home improvement projects or him carrying in all of the groceries. I didn’t get that, and I resented it. I hated him at times for taking that from me, for being the court jester instead of the knight. And I hated myself going with my gut instead of my brain.
We were happy, most of the time. Twisted and resentful and broken and missing out, but happy. Or at least contented, though I would never have been contented if I knew how much this would hurt.
But never normal. I don’t even know what normal looks like, what it feels like. I’m bent double under a weight that no longer exists. I don’t know how to straighten my back.
I came in at the very end of your story. I started reading your blog the day you wrote that Steve had died. I wish there were something I or anyone could say to lessen your pain. Besides the people you know, who love you and share your pain, there are others you don’t know, but who read your blog and care about you, and care what happens in the future. Keep writing.
We’ve missed you.
Hi Julie. Good to see you back, especially under the circumstances.
My husband had a thought he wanted me to pass along to you. “Sometimes love isn’t measured so much by how we feel, as much as it is by what we give up.” By that standard, I don’t think there’s a scale that would properly gage your love for your husband.
mary
Julie–please accept my deep condolences on your loss. Know that you will be in my thoughts.
Lisa
Julie,
I’ve not popped in for a long time. Tonight your old blog directed me here, and what I’ve read knocked the breath out of me.
I am so very stunned and sorry. You’re in my heart tonight and for nights to come.
Cindy
Julie, when my mother married my father he told her he didn’t expect to live beyond 39. He was the youngest of a family whose kidneys died within them, and his father died at 39. So by that age he had done everything he’d planned to, and he’d made my mother do all the long-term stuff.
He died at 49, from the disease he knew would kill him. We were 23 and 21. My mother has since learned how to walk tall and straight again.
Give yourself time. You’ll learn how to straighten your back.
Best of best thoughts are with you.
Julie,
I follow threads like rumors and find you, still moving me. I know there is nothing I can say to ease anything; I appreciate you sharing yourself, your life, your love.
Imagine if you hadn’t.
Take care, take care, take care.