Shiny and New

Chris and I have been together for the better part of 10 years, married for almost 6.  We have had ups and downs, like most people.  I laughingly say, "Old dogs, new tricks...." as a way to explain us finding our way on our togetherness path.  

The vows:  For better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health...we have seen it all in our still young marriage.  And in those years together, it is easy to become complacent and annoyed at our partners.  I know we have both been guilty of this.  

Chris is a good man.  He is kind and patient and he loves my boys as his own, as I do Madison.  He is also stubborn and impatient and can be quite crabby in the morning.  We both sometimes say things we don't mean.  We have had to learn that it's better to be kind than right.  We have also learned to hold our tongue when we need to.  

In the normal, boring life that happens when you are parents and work and just getting through the days, it's easy to not see the sparkle in your partner.  It's life and it happens.  It doesn't mean the love isn't there or the caring is gone.  It just means the daily grind is grinding and the outside isn't as shiny, at the moment.  

Chris and I recently went to Yosemite for a long weekend.  We were with friends and hiked and had some fun adventures.  Chris even did a half-marathon with me, despite it not being his thing (and it was his fifth time completing a half-marathon with me) and he was not feeling his best.  The race meant we had to wake up at 4am and get dressed and get our stuff together and drive a town away to ride a bus to the tippy top of a mountain and run a race at, seriously, the ass crack of dawn.  This was after spending the previous day hiking and doing things outside of his comfort zone, like trying to cross a creek on a very unstable set of rocks and branches.  And yet, he did it.  He might have melted down once in awhile or grumbled in our direction when he wasn't quite awake yet, but he did it.  He showed up and he was by my side and after pushing himself outside his little comfortable box, he had a really great time.  The pictures on the race course tell the story with his bright smile, looking more refreshed than is fair for a guy who had a total of 4 miles training for this race.  

On the last day of our weekend away, we went on the ultimate adventure during our time away:  white water rafting.  Over 15 years ago when I was living a different life in a different state with a different person and not very happy, I made a list of things I wanted to do.  It was my bucket list before they were widely called bucket lists.  One of the things I wrote down was to go white water rafting.  I had dreams of travelling the world and experiencing fun and scary things that pushed through my feelings of security--basically I had dreams of living a big life.  I didn't get a chance to cross many things off that list when I was living that different life with a different person in a different time.  Here I am, a decade and a half later, ready to cross this off my list.  I had a lot of excitement built up to do this trek down the river.  But what struck me most was that in my new life with this kind man, my dreams were coming true, one listed thing at a time.  This isn't the first time I had this thought.  When we took the kids to Hawaii, a place I only read about or heard about from my friends and family, I remember thinking the same thing.  My happiest joy was when he told me he wanted to travel the world with me.  It was a joy that made me feel aglow with hope for all the things yet to do together.   

Back to white water rafting...here we were:  adorned in all the gear, me with wide-deer-in-the-headlights eyes about to make our way down a very cold river with big waves that could very well bounce me out of the blown-up-boat.  A funny thing about me:  I am quite scared of many things.  And yet, I will still do most of the things offered when given a chance.  I was pretty terrified.  I was also very excited.  

We went down 11 miles of waterway on the river, traversing the rapids, under the watchful eyes of our guide.  It was exhilarating.  During a lull in our voyage, Chris asked about the hows and the whys of becoming a river rafting guide.  He was having the time of his life.  He laughed and waved and smiled his way through the rapids.  We joked with him that he could give up his math teaching career and be a man of the water.  His smile was radiating and his delight could be felt by all of us around him.  

When we got to the end of journey, everyone pitched in and helped bring supplies up to our waiting vans.  I sat and watched my husband go back and forth, helping and carrying the heavy rafts, until help was needed no more.  I just loved watching him.  He happily lends a hand and he asks what else he can do to make things easier on the people around him.  The dull finish that periodically happens in long relationships became shinier every time he went to bring another raft up.  There were 6 of those heavy things to heave onto the truck.  It made me so proud that I get to call him mine.  

After getting dried off and dressed and buying all the things from their gift shop, he made sure I had a nice meal for mother's day.  It was a melancholy day for me, for reasons I don't feel like going into, and he did everything he could to make sure I was celebrated and treated nicely-before we got on the road for the long 6 hour drive ahead of us.

I told him out of the blue that he was shiny again.  He knew what I meant and just smiled at me.  

Ruth Bader Ginsburg once told someone who asked what the secret to her long marriage was, that it was good to be a little deaf sometimes.  I really keep that one close.  Sometimes as humans we say or do inconsiderate or insensitive things.  I try to give the benefit of the doubt-it's not always easy.  But when Chris does these things, I try to be a little deaf.  I try to give him grace and I try to ignore the rotten tone or the sometimes offensive words.  Most people don't mean the shitty things they say.  It would be wrong to not recognize that even through this grace and deafness I try to afford him, that sometimes this kind, goofy guy I get to spend my life with doesn't seem so shiny through these moments.  None of us do.  I am sure I lost some shine in his eyes through the years, too.  

I love that watching him help out the group and experiencing his kindness sparked some shine in his direction.  It's easy to get caught up in the mundane and find fault with every stupid little foible.  He has some special days ahead:  Father's Day and his birthday follows the next month.  I am going to remind myself everyday of something that keeps him shiny and new in my eyes.  I won't let complacency and the regular hours of our days dull the finish on the really good man I am proud to call my husband.  I will remember to thank him for the things he does to make my days a little easier.  I will bake his favorite banana bread and send him to work with a lunch that not only satisfies him, but also delights his sometimes picky taste buds.  I will remember to dance with him after a long week on Friday nights, so that we can both have more fun and he can have more confidence when called to shake those hips that don't always shake.  I will go and watch one of his baseball games and cheer him on, while he prepares to hit the ball out of the park.  I will plan a little get-away so that he can rest and relax after being "on" in front of a classroom everyday.  I am going to do my part to keep his shine bright.  And as he allows me to sleep while he takes the night shift driving home from trips we take or visits to friends, I smile and rest easy that I am so lucky that I have him to love and cherish from this day forward until death do us part.  

Masks

A mask is a covering for all or part of the face, worn as a disguise, or to amuse or terrify other people.

We have worn masks every day for the last two years in places of employment, grocery stores, when there is are more than one person in a car or there are too many people around while outside. The little face coverings have kept us safe.

There is another kind of safety that masks provide, as well.  Arthur Brooks, an American author says of wearing metaphorical masks, “many of us do this every day when we cloak our identities or true feelings by suppressing our thoughts or acting in certain ways. Some of these masks we like, and some we don’t. Some we are forced to wear to get along in life, and others we wear voluntarily and are afraid to remove.”  As I have been walking through this period in life, I find that I am putting on masks everyday.  Each one, an attempt to hide my feelings and put a smile on my face and try to exist when I am feeling utterly empty inside.  

I have a mask of the successful employee.  Work is a safe place for me.  I am successful at what I do.  I connect with people and use my real life experiences to help them make hard decisions about their loved ones.  I make good money and big commissions.  I am able to donate to organizations that are important to me and I can afford to stock my refrigerator with whatever me or my family desires.  At the end of the day when I leave for my personal life, I remove the mask and have to face the unbelievable pain behind it.  

I wear the mask of the friend.  I am a friend to all.  I believe in putting good out in the world.  I am supportive of those in my circle and even those out of it.  I am one of the first to give when there is a need or a reason.  And yet when I have vulnerabilities, I cocoon away from people. I’m afraid to show too much because I don’t want to be too much. Will people still like me or love me when I have too much baggage or garbage happening in my sometimes tumultuous life?  Am I the one asking for a shoulder to cry on too much?  Am I showing up enough when I say I will be there?  I crave being around people I love and then I get scared it will all disappear.  I used to pride myself on being brave and outspoken.  I was proud of it until a friend once said to me, “Say what you really mean” in the way you know they don't appreciate knowing what you really mean. Do you want me to not be honest or strong or confident?  Those words have created the mask within me of not being as forthright and not as strong and certainly not confident when it really matters. I can walk up to any stranger or give a speech in front of people because they aren’t close to my heart. But put me in front of people I care about and the mask goes on. Do I measure up?

I wear masks of being one of the smart ones or the nice one in a group.  But there are insecurities all over the place-I have some really brilliant friends.  I was told by my mother I was the smart one in the family.  What she meant was I am not the beautiful one.  And although I know much about many things....I am the jack of all trades and a master of none: there are deficits in my education, I often don't think I have enough to contribute and there is not a lot of interesting things about me.  As far as being known as the nice one, people mistake my softness for weakness.  I am often talked down to or patronized because I don't care to engage or fight about things we don't have a lot of control over.  I liken it to making better use of my time.  Out in public however, I show cheer and grace and I attempt to ignore ugliness because these masks protects me from the anguish of being inadequate.     

On the weekends and many times during the week, I wear the mask of an athlete.  I was athletic when I was young.  I played tennis throughout high school and a bit for fun in college.  In my 30s, amidst what might be viewed as a mid-life crisis, along with getting a tattoo, I started doing half marathons.  I call it "doing" because at first it was as a walker and then a run/walker with dreams of becoming a runner.  The truth is if you run, you are a runner and yet I am plagued with feelings of self doubt and thoughts of:

I am not fast enough.

I do not progress enough. 

I am too fat. 

I am not coachable. 

All of the encouragement I extend to others, I look at myself and see it never crosses my mind that I deserve the same.  I have more than 50 medals hanging on racks on the walls of my bedroom of completed 5ks, 10ks half marathons and a marathon, among other races.  I still don’t feel like enough.

Do I still matter enough to run with or race with or coach if I am too fat, and too slow and if I don't progress fast enough?  Am I really an athlete?  Or am I just a fun runner because I have enjoyed the journey and the scenery and the friends made along the way more than I have enjoyed it for the time and the PRs?  It's a mask I am not sure I even understand.  

And then we have the hardest masks of all to take off because there is history and growth and faltering and being human--all rolled up into them: the family masks.

My kids mean everything to me. Sometimes, maybe, they mean too much.  I’ve made a lot of mistakes over the years and although I have done everything I can to rectify my part in bad situations, I find myself constantly never being enough. Or I am too much. It’s the story of my life. I sometimes haven’t held my tongue when I should have.  I’ve done the wrong things. I’m overbearing and too demanding of respect I haven’t been shown. I never had a role model in my own mother as what loving a child in a healthy way looks like. So I've loved as much as I could in whatever way I knew how, learning along the way.  I’ve tried to be a soft place for my kids to land.  I’ve tried to create fun experiences and memories for us in our new life-and I still don’t measure up.  For the mistakes I’ve made along the way, I now tolerate misuse because it’s the little bit of them that is afforded in my direction.  I wear the mask of mother but it feels so undeserving because they don’t want this piece of me.

I wear the mask of the dutiful sister, cousin, niece, and aunt.  Families have weird dynamics and ours is no different.  When we are together, we laugh and have fun.  My heart feels full and I don't want these occasions to stop.  I still fear these instances are too fleeting.  I will do anything for those I love.  I try to stay in the moment and capture every piece of these times as memories I will never forget but the questions in my head are always there:  Will I say the wrong thing or not do enough or react too emotionally?  Am I good enough?  Will they come to me if I don't go to them?  Will they be there for me when I need them?  Will they walk away?  Will I be alone again?  And yet the days go on and I relish every second until it's time to leave.  When it is time to get back to my routine of running with friends and going to the grocery store and walking my dog, my heart can relax a little more because it is easier to not feel all of the feelings.  The mask comes off in the nonce of the mundane and my body mellows.  

For most people, the symbolic masks project how they want to be seen by the world. For me, they amplify what I am not.  I’m tired of masks. Some days I wish people could see who I am behind all of the covers we wear and that I was confident that I would be accepted as just me. The truth is, just like many others, I don’t want to end up like my mother: without friends or family or children by my side as the days ahead of me are less than the days behind me.  My masks protect me from the biggest fear of all:  I don’t want to be alone.