11.16.2008

flood in my head

I'm sure I'll regret all this typing tomorrow.
But really, why not? I'm alone, I'm lonely, and the words never end.
I'm missing my dad. He would know exactly what to do to prepare the soil for winter. He would love to see my son. His grandson. I am actually praying that Finn is a lot like my dad. It just so happens that the relative I am most similar to is my grandmother, so it's not impossible that Finn could be similar to his grandfather, though he'll never know him.
Lately, I've been thinking a lot about past relationships. I walk the dog at least once a day, twice a day when Scott has a long day and isn't able to take the dog for either of his two daily walks. The weather, I suppose, is what's nudged my memory to dig up old shoe boxes of failed romances and sift through them with painful detail. What I have been discovering while swimming through memories is that, as Ben Gibbard so poetically puts it "And now I'm seeing that I was the one worth leaving". With the exception of one of my pre-marriage relationships, I wasn't the perfect partner I usually remember myself as. It's easier to remember things without clarity, but instead colored by emotions like bitterness. That way there's no blame to bear. It turns out - with M., though he certainly had his faults, I was not the good girlfriend I imagined myself to be. I was too needy, I didn't give him space. I think I cheated on him. I dishonored him and disrespected him. I expected too much, wanted too much. With R. I was just wasting time. I think we claimed love, but the whole time I was just waiting for something better. Shouldn't have moved in with him. What a disaster. I did cheat on him. With E. I was just stupid and ruined a perfectly good relationship for some convoluted notion of freedom. At least I left that relationship before cheating.
In short, my entire life up to just a few years ago consisted mainly of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Or techno, to be more precise. And that's what I cared about, and that's how I made my choices. I had no healthy model of a loving relationship to know what more I should want, or strive for. Sorry, ex-lovers.
That's why, when I met Scott, I couldn't believe what I'd landed. A man this good, who loved me - crass, sarcastic, guarded, over-sexed, overall ugly and broken. He somehow saw through all of that. My healthiest, most loving relationship.
I know he works so hard because he wants to be good for us. He wants to honor God, and honor me, and provide for his family. He wants to graduate nursing school and make salary. It's just hard, sometimes, to not feel slightly sad or bitter because he is gone so much. I feel like he's missing the first year of his son's life. I sometimes feel forgotten. I make it a point to make sure we kiss - on the lips - at least once a day. Usually, I wait up for him until he comes home from work. We tumble into bed, he's exhausted, I have things stored up to tell him, but I only tell half of them before I feel him drifting off. I kiss him, we cuddle, and shortly thereafter, it's tomorrow, and he's gone again, and I'm here. Doing the dishes. Feeding the baby. Walking the dog. Mulching the garden. Tidying the house. Baking sweets. Cooking meals. Folding the laundry. Sifting through memories. Missing my dad. Waiting for Scott to get home so we can kiss on the lips again.

3 comments:

Danyell said...

"That's why, when I met Scott, I couldn't believe what I'd landed. A man this good, who loved me - crass, sarcastic, guarded, over-sexed, overall ugly and broken".

^^^ Total and complete grok.

It is a terrible sadness that your son will never bodily meet your father. Recently I read about a woman whose father had died before her children were born, so she put a whole mess of pictures along with little notes about memories, along with some three dimensional stuff (I think some fishing gear, things like that) into a chest her father had owned. Then every now and again she would get all this out, and she and her children would "spend the day with Grandpa." In that way, she felt she was passing the memory of her father down and sharing his love with her kids. (* Side note, you should probably skip the illegal stuff... at least until he's a little older ;)).

Why am I always so full of advice? I love you. And past mistakes are there for learning. Or so I'm told. I never made any *chortle chortle*

Anoma said...

I understand. Sometimes I think crazy things, like God might decide to punish me for those "love, sex, and rock and roll" years but not sending me a good, strong man to love and be loved by.

Anyway, Scott loved you because you were always beautiful. No matter what you did, or do. You are always beautiful.

Anoma said...

ps. I'm lonely too. =( I think I will try to move to Chicago soon. Next summer. It's still going to be lonely, but it will be something different.