I’ve been thinking an awful lot about what was going on with us at this exact time last year. That horribly bleak period of time where I tried so hard to convince myself that I could ever be anything but his.
This is the post that I intended to write when I sat down here yesterday, but before I started writing, I read a comment from Ms Blair that mentioned last year and I ended up getting sidetracked with thinking about prostituting myself for Master’s financial benefit. I realize prostitution and last year are not related but maybe it threw me for a loop to have someone in my head like that (How is it in there, Ms Blair? Roomy? ;-) )
I think about this time last year quite frequently actually. I look back on it the same way one might recall that narrow miss of the car that pulled out in front of them on the highway. Intermittent dwellings on the ‘what would have happened if-’, the acknowledgment of having avoided certain horrific tragedy, followed by an overwhelming sense of relief, an appreciation of life. Feeling lucky.
We are lucky. We’re lucky that we came through that period. Not just that we came through it still together, but that we are stronger for it.
When I was at my mother’s house and we were sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner, I couldn’t help but think of last year’s Thanksgiving. It was, without comparison, the very worst day of my life.
It was the night before Thanksgiving last year that everything went to hell. Right up until that pivotal moment, things had been peachy-keen-jelly-bean. Well, perhaps not entirely peachy-keen. If I remember correctly, this was just days after Jes making her big announcement of upcoming Babygirl.
But that night, “this” happened that led to “that” being said that led to “this” being said that led to “that”… etc. etc. That led to us retreating to our corners to lick our wounds- and lock the other out.
That Wednesday night, the night before Thanksgiving last year, was dark and lonely and cold and… horrible. Just horrible.
The next day, Thanksgiving day, dawned even colder. Master and I weren’t speaking to each other, so wrapped up in our own pain and betrayal that we couldn’t even see the other’s pain and confusion. He shut himself away, physically and emotionally, in his cave. I shut myself in the bedroom. The kids stayed in their rooms. The silence was heavy. The doom was palpable.
I couldn’t think of anything to be thankful for.
Sometime late in the afternoon, after I’d cried myself a river, I started to feel guilty for the kids. It was their Thanksgiving, too. So maybe I wasn’t feeling particularly celebratory, but maybe they were. It wasn’t fair to thrust my adult pain and angst on them.
I pulled myself up by my bootstraps and headed to the kitchen to make a Thanksgiving dinner. It was way, way late. I think the turkey got done somewhere near to 8pm or so. I remember standing in the kitchen, peeling potatoes and making a pumpkin pie- and crying the whole time.
I took Master a plate. He accepted it with stoic, and sterile, gratitude.
The kids and I ate at the table.
I don’t think anyone talked.
I don’t think anyone ate, either.
Without question, it was the very worst day of my life.
And I never, ever want to forget it.
Painful and horrible as it was, I need to remember it. Starkly. Clearly. Forever.
A person becomes a more conscientious driver after a narrow miss.
We are better together for that narrow miss.
This last year has been remarkably drama-free for us. Something wonderful happened during those two weeks of blackness. Those two weeks when we clinically discussed the ending of us, as painful and raw and hurtful as it all was, something changed in us for it.
I’m not saying that every couple must, at some point, stand at that precipice to fully appreciate what they have. I only know that we were one of the couples who needed it. Because it awoke something in us. Something that we’d both put to rest, probably years and years before we even knew each other, a self-protective response to other hurts and betrayals that had nothing to do with the other, but effectively kept the other out.
That day that I stood ready to walk, outwardly strong and confident, inwardly screaming and begging for him to look, to just LOOK at me, inside me, and FIX it before it was too late. On that same day, he stood back, and from what I could see was detached, unemotional and closed- and inwardly was doing much the same screaming.
I don’t know which one of us cracked first. I don’t remember who had the epiphany that the other can’t see what we aren’t showing, aren’t sharing. It wasn’t just the old “s/he ain’t a mindreader” realization- it was something else. Something more visceral.
We were both very, very good at not letting our hurts show.
Whichever one of us opened up first, the other was not more than a second behind. What I remember most vividly about that day was how incredibly light I felt when it was over. Like I could float away, so unburdened was I with no longer having to keep that door shut.
Neither of us take that “gift” lightly. For he’s let me in as surely as I’ve let him. I hold as much power as he does to wound, to cut. It has not been the painful experience we expected, the reason we held so tightly to those barriers, that fear of irreparable damage- it hasn’t been. Instead, we treasure it. Comfort it. Soothe it.
It’s not submission that was gifted, not his dominance or ownership that was gifted.
It was looking at each other, I mean really, really looking at each other, and believing that the pain of certain separation would be far more traumatic than the pain of opening up- and possibly losing.
It was gifting each other with implicit faith.
That he would lead me, lead us, where we need to go without abusing that privilege. It may not be perfect or rosy, and it doesn’t have to be.
And that I, too, would follow, without regret or malice. Without resentment or second-guessing.
In the last year, there’s been more growth, more connection, more progress made between us as a couple; as Master and slave; husband and wife; friends and lovers, and between us as parents, a united front, and equal (yes I said equal) contributors to childrearing, than there was in all the previous years combined.
We needed that one pivotal moment to make a chink in the wall.
What difference did a year make?
My entire world.
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Uncategorized | kaya | 
Tuesday December 15th, 2009 8:22am | 
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