Willing to Lose

They say you can't steal second, with your foot on first, and of course, they are right.  But lately I have been wondering if one can do anything without risking something.  Just think about it for a moment.  When you walk, what must you do to go forward?  That's right, you have to get off balance and then you have to fall.  If you are never off balance, you will only shuffle along, and unless you are dancing, who wants to shuffle?

For the past 10 months, I have been working at making some major changes in my life.  At first, it was a sorting process.  Deciding what to keep and what to let go of.  Then it became a question of, what do I really want?  What is worth fighting for and what is not?  But answering those questions was not enough.

I finally had to face the crux.  What is most important?  If I only accomplish one thing in this life, what do I want it to be?  And then, I made the hardest decision of my life.  I chose my children over my marriage.

Growing up, all through college and for the first dozen years of my marriage, I swore I would never be one of those women who put her children above her husband.  But when I looked at what was most important in life, I saw that the well being of these little people who depended on me mattered more than anything else I could do.  The men they grew to be was more important my happiness.

It was in March when I realized this.  And it took me about another month to decide I was willing to move forward.  A month of wondering, 'If I do what I think is best, will I destroy my marriage?'

I had spent 12 years doing my best to follow my husband's leading, but it had left me more lost than ever.  It had left him lost too.  One evening in April, he came to me and said, "I've been married to you for a dozen years, and what do I have to show for it?  Our lives are a mess.  Our children are a mess.  Our home is a mess.  What are we doing?  We can't go on like this."

It was then I realized that if I didn't do something, my marriage and my children would be lost.  So I stepped out.  Not in a bad way, but in a bold way.  I told him up front that I was going to do things my way and that I did not want his input, furthermore, I was going to revert to the ideals I had at 17--at least back then I knew what I wanted out of life!

He, of course, wasn't too sure about all of this.  We had met when I was 17, and was a bit of a wild child--for his taste.  But I did my best to recall that girl I use to be, and to move on with the knowledge I had once had of child raising and being small.

The next month was one of the best months I had ever had.  I accomplished things without criticism.  I interacted with my children the way I had longed to for years.  My confidence grew with each string I tied with my children.  I felt like our home was finally going to be the happy place I longed for it to be.  Procrastination and fear were ever present--they had been my companions for year, and old habits are hard to shake--but things were improving. 

Then, shortly after our thirteenth anniversary, in May, it all came crashing down.  I made the mistake of telling my husband how happy I was.  His response?  "I've been biting my tongue for a month, and you're finally happy?"

Ouch.

It wasn't meant to be an insult.  Just a progress report.  The fight went from bad to worse, until I felt like the most worthless human being on the face of this planet. 

That night, I talked to a friend online.  He is older and divorced.  He kept insisting, "You don't love your husband.  I know what you are going through.  I was in the same place you are when I was your age."

I kept insisting that he was wrong, that I did love my husband.  I didn't know what else to do.  My marriage was (and is) the most important relationship in my life, but I also knew I was willing to give it up for the sake of my children, if that is what it took to grow them into productive adults.  I had to wonder if he was right...

This song, Same Old Lang Syne, made me wonder more...

"She would have liked to say she loved the man, but she didn't like to lie."

 It really weighed on me.  Was I just fooling myself, when I said I loved him?  Was it simply habit or sentiment that made me think that way?

After our fight, he went back to biting his tongue and I went on with my scheme, wondering if we were going to make it or not.  After a couple more months, I had a very vivid day dream that put everything in perspective for me.

It was of our family on a mountain road, heading for Pinedale.  My husband was running ahead, exploring every side trail.  I was following along, herding the children along the path.  Every now and then, my husband would reappear, to tell me of things that were ahead.  He would make all kinds of suggestions of 'fun things' I could do with the kids... but doing them was never fun.
There were lots of bad attitudes amongst the children, and my attitude was one of drudgery.  I don't mind mountain trails, with my love, but I do mind walking them alone, or worse yet, with five grumpy children.  I hated setting up camp every evening, knowing that it would just be torn down the next morning, just to do the same thing over again.  I kept thinking of the vehicle parked at the trail head, and my well marked map showing the route to Pinedale.
Finally, enough was enough.  I told hubby, "You have fun taking this route, and don't worry about us.  We'll meet you there."  Then I left him the supplies he would need and took the children back to the vehicle.  I pulled out my map and made my plans, then took off driving.   Traveling a road I was confident in.

I knew my husband and I had the same goals a dreams when we got married, but somehow we had gotten terribly off track.  He said I was impossible to lead.  I said he was impossible to follow.  Traveling the way each of us knew best made sense to me.  So we may not always be together?  It wasn't like we were together before.  And his concern for the children was as great as mine.

The question of love still bothered me though.  So what if we could give our children a great life, if we really didn't love each other?

As I was contemplating this, a song from Fiddler on the Roof came to mind:



Tevye asks his wife if she loves him.  She answers very practically.

"Do I love you?
For twenty-five years I've washed your clothes
Cooked your meals, cleaned your house
Given you children, milked the cow
After twenty-five years, why talk about love right now?
. . .
Do I love him?
For twenty-five years I've lived with him
Fought him, starved with him
Twenty-five years my bed is his
If that's not love, what is?"

I realized that arranged marriages did and do work, because there was a commitment to treat the other person right.  And I knew my husband and I had that commitment.   

Maybe we weren't in love.  Maybe things weren't perfect.  It didn't mean we couldn't make the most of what we had.  It had been several months since our fight that left me feeling worthless, and in that time I had been able to observe that though we had problems, we had good things too.  I decided right then and there to make the good things great, make the mediocre things good and ignore the rest for as long as possible.  So what if we couldn't carry on a normal conversation.  Is talking really that important?

And you know what?  It made a difference.  As I worked to make the good things great, he fell more and more in love with me.   His feelings changed, and with it, his outlook.

With every step I have accomplished in remodeling the kitchen, he has realized how little he understood me.  Even with pictures torn form magazines, drawings and dimensional plans, he hadn't caught the vision.  What I have produced (which is exactly what I wanted) was not at all what he had envisioned.  Furthermore, he loves what I am doing.  For months, before I began, he did his best to convince me that I would hate the finished product and tried to talk me into giving the idea up.  Now he is glad I didn't.

Things are not perfect, and they never will be, but as of now, I'm standing on second.  I had to let go of first in order to gain it.  For a while, I thought I might lose it all, but with this gain, I have realized that doing nothing is like planning to lose.  You can't win a game while playing it safe.  With every move you make, you have to be willing to give up stability in order to move forward.  And falling doesn't mean failing.  Sometimes, it is just motion.  When I clung to my marriage with everything I had, I almost destroyed it.  When I let go and let be, things came together.

~*~*~*~*~*~

As I was writing this up, hubby came to tell me goodnight.  He said, "I love you.  I am so glad you are getting the confidence you need."

And you know what?  Those weren't empty words.  And I love him too.