While it's truth that the more dicey a situation is, the more grounded I seem to feel (yes, even as a kid), those moments were probably .000009 of my life experience. The other times were something quite different. Calm would not be a word I'd ever apply to them.
I often wonder what John thought a month after we married. It never dawned on me, the false image he'd gotten of my family & our interpersonal mash-ups. John wasn't privy to the wheeling & dealing that went on leading up to our engagement announcement, with one person threatening to boycott the party if things weren't done in the manner HE saw best. John didn't know the fractious history between family members, because from the moment we first connected to our wedding day was about as ideal a time as anyone could imagine.
And then the wedding was over & everyone went back to their usual selves.
For years, as I chronically fell into periods of self-doubt, criticism & even loathing, John felt helpless at his inability to turn things around. "Why isn't MY love enough?" was his frequent plea. He didn't say what he could have - because you're never going to get theirs. He didn't understand - the entire premise of my life was to be the person who made our family possible.
And I didn't understand that the reason was because I was the only one who saw us - all of us, including me - as a family.
Calm is the last word I'd use to describe how I was from age 24 to my mid 50s. More like a basket case, unable to fit in where it seemed to matter most, unable to fit in other places because of my expectation that people wouldn't like me (except John, thank goodness - not sure how it was okay for him to love me).
Can't imagine how I came across to others - all merry & bright on meeting, which quickly flipped into a dour, dark side. My pessimistic, self-negating nurture clashing with my genuinely hopeful, upbeat nature. Can recall people actually backing away in confusion. I was a mess.
It wasn't until John that I learned healthy ways to express distress. That was an eye opener - with John, it was okay to be stressed out & distraught; not for the sake of acting up, but for figuring out what was wrong & resolving it.
Will always remember the first time I wigged out on him & he asked, "What is the problem?" Stopped in my tracks, jaw dropped, disbelieving. Huh? He repeated, "What is the problem?"
In all my 37+ years, no one had ever asked me that. My family had no concept of identifying a problem in order to address & resolve it. But John did. I spilled out to him what he'd said that had reduced me to emotional rubble.
He looked at me, a light dawning. "Oh," he said. "You heard me say.... No wonder you were upset. What I meant by what I said was...."
Oh, my gosh. He repeated back to me what I'd heard, acknowledged that was what I'd heard, then went on to let me know that it was NOT what he'd meant to convey, and let me know what that was. Wow... I could not believe how blessed I was to be married to such a man.
Twenty-four years later, I feel the same way.
It could not have been easy for him. In my experience, it was NOT okay to identify a problem with the goal of resolving it. Not our family way. My sister-in-law was spot on when she'd bitterly complain that Lockharts preferred to bury their heads in the sand. I was the exception, always alarmingly ready to look a difficult situation in the eye. And get shut down every time.
Twenty-four years later, can still feel the lightness of being that came upon me when it dawned on me that John had no such qualms about looking problems straight on, that he saw them as no more than a natural part of life, to be reckoned with & moved past.
I can't imagine all those years, after we were married & while Mom was still alive, when I fell into increasingly dark moods & desperation. It was no laughing matter, that's for sure. On the one hand, I had John's healthy approach; the other, Mom's. How blessed I was that John rose to the occasion, quietly, without fanfare, providing the emotional ballast I so desperately needed.
Yes, the first 15+ years of our marriage were far from calm. And making serious headway wasn't really possible until after Mom was reunited with her O Best Beloved, for more reasons than I'm sure I'll ever understand. John had to deal with a wife who emotionally disintegrated on a regular basis.
John was my rock, providing the kind, caring & fair-minded qualities I needed more than anything else. Above all, he modeled health. And he never, not once, criticized my siblings or Mom (with the sole exception of a snarky comment to me about my s-i-l's hair color). That mattered immensely to me.
So, I find it pretty laughable, reading some of my earlier posts & seeing how balanced I seemed. HA! But what is true is that I always, from age 24, believed that balance was possible. That and an ability to delve deeply & come back up safely were my highest aspirations.
Laughing matter? No.
Knowing the ultimate goal was as simple as joy? Yes.
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