This 8 months married has two parts: the part where I realize I am often a butt, but how great it is to be married to Caid, and the part where Caid left for teacher training and I fell apart.
We had been engaged a month when I realized I wouldn't be able to suck in my pooch or straighten my posture forever around him--he was going to see it all. We'd been engaged for two months when I realized he was a very touchy person, and would want to touch me even on days when I felt ugly and fat. And then we got married. I kept wondering why everyone would let me make such a drastic decision. No one tried to stop me. I was used to a certain level of resistance to my crazy ideas, and here was my craziest--and no one said a word. The silence was terrifying.
"Marriage reveals what a crappy person you are" They told me.
"Nonsense" I said, up until the 7th month of marriage. I guess I should be glad I made it that far. I sit there as he explains his side of things and realize that YES, I was a butt. And on top of that, I was mean to him about it and dragged our whole time together through the dirt. Shoot. Why do I try to control so much?
To accomplish anything, you sacrifice something else. To say “Yes” to one—you say “No” to countless others. I am stingy with money and selfish with time, and I do all I can to control both.
Growing up, there wasn’t a lot of money. Enough, but always careful. And I learned from my generous parents that money was to save and give, save and give. That is how it worked.
Growing up, there wasn’t a lot of time. Jesus was coming back at any time, and to top it off, from our theology, all we had to look forward to was the tribulation starting at any moment. I just prayed I would get kissed first. There was always a sense of urgency—and we had better use our time wisely. That is how it worked.
So I became successful at accomplishing goals. Anything I wanted, I turned into a project, and any project I wanted enough was accomplished. I would sacrifice time, energy—even relationships were put on hold to get my project done. The biggest project I had was Brazil. And then I fell in love: love always complicates things, especially when you are in love with a country.
Then I got married. And to some extent, marriage has become my current project. Mostly, that is healthy: I work hard, invest, and sacrifice time and even other relationships to focus on “us.” And thank God, he is the people-focused person who will hold me and say “put the paper away and just be.”
And the plus-side to realizing I am a butt is realizing that he loves me anyways. Some of that lovey-dovey feeling I lamented losing around month 3 has returned. Our goodbyes are positively gushy. I feel bad for observers. I haven't decided if our return to honeymoonishness is because I realize I've got issues or because we are coming up on our first SEPARATION. It is always written in capital letters and it lasts exactly 12 days while Caid gets teacher training.
(Rachel with Caid)
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(Rachel without Caid)
The five stages of grief are denial/isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. I heard on a radio show that depression is over diagnosed: that if you can tell someone WHY you are depressed, it isn’t clinical depression—it is grief. In our technological world, I fear we have forgotten the simple emotion of grief and how to deal with it.
We have forgotten that we are broken and live in a broken world and some days…many days…are filled with grief and must be dealt with as so. I don’t feel I have ever dealt with depression in my own life, but I have been overwhelmed and debilitated by grief before. Yes—when someone dies, but it is so much more than that. It is seeing poverty every single day. It is seeing children you love not have enough food. It is seeing kids in Indianapolis go home every night to an abusive home. It is not being able to be there for your best friend. It is a million and one things that come every day.
Sometimes I sit down and have a good cry and feel better for it—though I couldn’t tell you why. Life just needed to be grieved for. So when I tell you that I have been going through the five stages of grief since Caid has been gone, don’t think he has died. Don’t think I am over-reacting. Don’t worry that I am depressed. It has changed up my life considerably, and so I identify my emotions and continue on living a perfectly responsible life.
Denial/Isolation: Caid only went to North Carolina. It is only 12 days. I am not in denial, but I did find a good fantasy book that was 1,040 pages and read it in three days. I wanted another world to hide in for a while, instead of a world without Caid. I often used books for hiding and isolation growing up, when I just didn’t want to deal with present things in the present.
Anger: ok. I haven’t been angry--skip that. I want Caid to get this training—and I am so excited about the opportunities it brings. Bargaining: My prayer/conversations with God often revolve around bargaining much more than they should. “Can you make time go faster if do all I am supposed to do?” “Can you help me forget about missing Caid if I read more Bible?” How sad.
Depression: this is not clinical depression—and I think people confuse this with “feeling blah, feeling sad, feeling down.” My body, for some reason, which has always been really good at eating and sleeping, doesn’t want to anymore. “I will see Caid soon” I tell myself, but still…bleh.
Acceptance: Life must go on and Rachel, you are being too dramatic about everything. I know. And I helped my parents re-decorate the living room, saw a movie with my friend, got together with friends, went shopping, and did my duties. But goodness, I’ll be glad to be back with Caid. More facebook reunion/kissing pictures soon to come.
