Deconstructing the Wall

It was a good idea, for a while at least. Each of us hot off a marriage, our exits unique but painful in their own rights, we took advantage of a warm body and a strong shoulder and dove in, hoping to not hurt or to get hurt. I'd venture a guess that there were a good three months over the course of a year where we were both on the same page, where we both believed that we'd really make a go, we stood a chance, but for the most part we were plagued with insecurity, doubt and sadness. I can't speak for his experience, it wouldn't be fair, but I own mine and I share.

The forced breathing only lasted for so long, my comfort in grieving before an audience wore thin very quickly, I revisited my old depression guilt, the one that reminded me of how irritating depressed folks can be to those who aren't (which is to say, "very."). Anyone who's experienced a shut-out by a lover can attest to its decided lack of humor and I started building a wall to keep out the Wall. I didn't want to be comforted, I didn't want the shoulder, I didn't want the warm body. I didn't want to talk to anyone or to be talked to...I wanted to be alone with my son and our home and our process. A wise woman told me, months before, that it was time to deconstruct, to stand up for my family and say, "I'm sorry, no more, it's not the time," and I held those words in my heart and head and I weighed them, daily, until I knew that they were the words that would lighten the load.

I'd done it before, almost immediately post-tragedy, I'd tried to comfort us with distraction, I'd tried to move us away, I'd tried to start over but what I didn't know was that I wasn't finished, it wasn't time to start over, and I'd already had to say, "I'm sorry, no more, it's not the time," and it didn't go well and I was sorry. Sorry for myself, sorry for the Distraction, sorry for Fergus...embarrassed that my flight impulse had driven me to such great declarations of relocation, of feigned strength and failed intentions. I kicked myself over what is probably the permanent disconnection from the Distraction, I'm still trying to erase from the brain of a 6-year-old that Texas does not equal Distraction, that we can visit there -- live there, even, if we were ever so inclined -- and that it would not be for that intention. Any parent of a small child knows the power of association, knows how sometimes undoing a notion just means patently ignoring it: We don't talk about Texas in this house, outside of its connection to a certain cartoon squirrel. Texas is still a bruise, albeit a fading one.

the Wall is a big, sore hematoma that needs lots of ice and cuddling and regression-catering. Whereas I look in the Brian mirror every day and see "Bad Wife" tattooed on my forehead, I look in the Fergus mirror and see "Bad Mother" in henna...this one I can fix, for this one I get a do-over, but I have to learn a lesson from it, maybe for the first time. I confess to being an overlapper, I confess that I am unfamiliar with my own company and for this reason I have never been alone. Because of Fergus, because he requires stability and commitment and will certainly become a true copy of his mother without it, I must abstain from comforting myself with compulsion. the Wall was a mistake, one that I thought I might be making but hoped I wasn't, one that I let stand much longer than I should have because I didn't want to admit defeat and I didn't want to hurt my son, again. And so I hurt him anyway, I moved his heart to another Texas and back again and here we are, almost at square one but with a bigger vocabulary.

My sorrow for the Wall is great, as well; I had no intention of playing fast and loose with his emotions, either (I never do), but he is hurt and confused and I am sorry, I really am. My heart is only so big anymore -- or maybe it's as big as it ever was and the things occupying it now are so much heavier than have ever lived there before -- and carrying my own weight and Fergus's has given me a sore shoulder and the heaviest of hearts, constricting my breathing and leaving no room for someone else's emotions. I cannot care for the Wall and it began to tatter like wet rice paper and one cannot repair that kind of damage. Nevermind the damage I was doing to myself, the burden I was taking on of nurturing another heart while tending to our wounds -- I'm not boundless. No, I am quite certainly bound, humanly limited, and the Wall knew its material, knew its vulnerability and it took the chance, anyway, and grown Walls must accept responsibility for their own risks, successes and failures.

Make some effort, make some changes

So here I am, with the effort after some changes, trying to make another go of this writing business. I am rusty, I creak and strain but my fingers can still find the letters without looking down; the brain is dusty and stuffy and might need me to open a window before this can happen again.

The days are slowly getting easier, even as they become more difficult. The money is tighter, the winter seems endless but the two of us, the boy and me, we chug on and keep our faces to the wind...we are masochists, this way. I am grateful for his innate stubbornness, I am thankful for his fragility, he is unabashedly balanced in a way that I could never own, was never allowed to. It's hard not to quell his temper -- and he has one, make no mistake -- for to do so would mean to activate my own and that's a place I don't want to take him. Actually, that's not entirely true: I can calm him without raising my voice, without sternness or reprimand, but it's a challenge for me again. Brian's suicide reset me in a way that is no less than practically impossible in the realm of going back to the old me; I'm trying, damnedest, to relish the challenge of reinvention.

"We are different people now, we've walked through the hottest fire, we are scarred and realigned and redirected and stronger and weaker. We will never be who we were before that day," said a man in my survivors' group whose business is none of yours but is challenged, eight years out, in ways that make my eighteen months feel like eighteen minutes. I am grateful for this group, this twice-a-month gathering of fellow survivors -- that's what they call us, those left behind: Survivors -- because when I tell our story, even in this context, I am almost always sure that I have just told the story of my own personal alien abduction and the listener/reader is just waiting for the part about the anal probe. Not there, though, not in the stuffy church room with the uncomfortable chairs and the relentless forced-air heat that could dry an ocean...there I am normal, as normal as the ten-to-twenty other alien abductees surrounding me. There, when I am complimented on my strength, on my will, on my sticktoitiveness, I am grateful and not uncomfortable. There, we speak a different language and we talk in graphic detail and we confess our borne-of-this-event addictions and we give no advice. We cry for ourselves and for each other and we don't tell each other that it will pass because it won't pass, not ever, it will only become more manageable. I suppose this is true of any support group, but I only have this experience on which to draw.

Outside in the world, it's a different story. Today, at the optometrist, I talked about Fergus as I do so many times a day and I was confronted with the inevitable, indirect question of the location of his father -- which is, incidentally, in at least two places on this physical plane, one of which is right next to me where I type -- and I said, "he died," and she said, "oh, I'm so sorry," and they always are and I don't elaborate if no one asks. I am the only one -- not the single one, the only one -- and I am mother and father, I soothe and I comfort while I direct and instruct. I break bad news, I reassure, I encourage, I discourage, I make rules and I break rules and I pay all the bills, selectively, with only my money. I wrestle and rough house, I instruct play time, I drive to school and I pick up from school. I also make a concerted effort, now, to care for myself while caring for him and 200% is a lot of per cent.

My eyebrows are neglected, I should probably put on some makeup and sometime in the distant past I heard that putting on shoes with laces is one of the best things one can do for their day. I also heard that polishing the sink every night helps, but that seems crazy. I only own clogs and slip-on Vans, makeup ought to be washed off before sleeping and who has that kind of energy...I have no excuse in the eyebrow department, I'm in the car often enough to take advantage of the natural sunlight. I might should practice every day, I should roll out the mat before I make my tea and I should, at least, run through my A's and B's, all ten of them. I should stand on my head, I should strengthen my upper body, I should bend my back and twist my spine, I should wring out my organs, I should breathe.