How Can I Free Myself?

I was arguing with John recently. It was one of those arguments with a repeating theme. The old argument was just updated, and with different details. And yes, there was me saying, “Why don’t you…?” and “You always…”

As much as I really wanted to enjoy my righteous rightness (and surely I was 82% right), I also felt the undeniable familiarity of this fight. That is one of the downsides of longer recovery—you can’t hide from yourself so well anymore—and knowing that your own part of it takes the satisfaction out of fighting in a flash.

So what was I going to do? Could I walk through a conflict that was challenging me, and where I really did have hurt feelings?

I used my recovery tools. I sent email to my sponsor; I called another sober woman, and I went to my bookshelf. I always go to books. I came to recovery by the grace of Robin Norwood’s books, and so for me bibliotherapy is a valued tool.

I started with our Big Book. I read Step three and about surrender. Oh. Yuck --but also yep! But just how could I move past my hurt feelings? How could I shift the energy from insisting on my rightness to somehow using this situation for growth?

I landed on the book called How Can I Forgive You? By Janis Abraham Spring, and there I

got relief. Dr. Spring writes about forgiving really hard stuff like infidelity and parental betrayal so I knew I could lean into her wisdom for this fuss I was in with John. Here’s what I read in Spring’s book:

“Your freedom lies not in protesting the unfairness of the violation or in getting the offender to care. Your freedom –perhaps your only freedom—is in deciding how to survive and transcend the injury. Don’t underestimate this freedom: it’s enormous. With it comes the power to decide how you’re going to live the rest of your life. As you take the task of healing into your own hands, you empower yourself and have peace.”

Bingo! It was peace that I wanted…not to let John off the hook necessarily, but I wanted to get me off my own hook and out of my spinning head. It felt just like that wonderful paradox of AA and Alanon—being selfish enough to take the focus off of being right so I can give me back my own good life.

Fighting for Us

This weekend we battled. All the ingredients were there: hungry, tired, bad traffic, a long car ride, a difficult family member, my expectations, his assumptions.

Later, after the swearing was over, we talked about what happened. I need to speak up. He needs to ask questions. We need to plan for the emotions that are provoked by family. I need to take it less personally. He needs to take it more seriously. We both apologized.

But still later, after the make-up sex was over, we talked again and came to this new idea: When we fight we need to fight for the relationship and not against each other. Yes, easier said than done in the heat of the moment, but a new idea, that makes us allies --even in war.

Criticism

I got a great  piece of advice last week from Diane Sawyer.

Last week I saw her interviewed on Oprah and she talked about her marriage to Mike Nichols. She said the best piece of advice she was given for marriage was: “Criticism is just a very poor way of making a request—so could you maybe just make the request?"

Brilliant. “You are selfish and lazy” is just a really poor way to ask: “Can you help me?”

Now lets see if I can do it!

Letters from the Land of Cancer

A new book adds perspective to the thing I have often challenged: the idea that cancer is a war. Obituaries say, “After a valiant battle with cancer”, “He/she lost a heroic fight with cancer.”

In his last book, “Letters from the Land of Cancer”, Walter Wangerin writes that it is not cancer we fight but mortality. And in that we all are engaged no matter the disease or even those who are blessed with the gift f long life. We die, we die, we will die. Sooner, later, easier or hard. We will die.

What he adds to this discussion—even as he writes during his experience with terminal lymphoma—is that if our battle is really with mortality then—for those of us who have faith—we are engaged in battle with God.

Dare the obituaries say, “After years of fighting God on mortality she finally surrendered.” Or how about this: “After a lengthy battle with God—in the land of cancer—God won.”

Fighting to Remember

For two days we fought like cats and dogs—or maybe like Mars and Venus. All the things that the experts and relationship books say not to do we did: Brought up the past, said mean things, accused, said “always” and “never”, got loud, got silent, went to bed mad, didn’t go to bed at all. And then we cried. We sat on the bed sobbing. Were we really going to end this? What was this fury and terrible desperate pain between us? And inside of me I was asking, “Why now?” The past several months had been so happy; we’d had such a wonderful summer; we were making plans. We were both shaking our heads and reeling from our battle. And then…

And then yesterday I came home from work to a phone message from the oncologist. A reminder call that blood tests and follow up cancer screening is this Friday. Neither of us had remembered. Neither of us had put it on the calendar. But here it was and we both knew. Deep down in the body or mind we both knew the scary time was coming again and the risk to us was back. Now even more frightening because we had gotten comfortable again.

Cancer had gone on a long trip.

And we just got a postcard saying, “Be home soon; wish I was there.”

The All Nighter

Maybe we needed to clear the air. Maybe it’s the frustration of the legal, financial and medical all colliding like three cold fronts. Maybe it’s the dynamic of a relationship that needs a blow-out the way the earth needs a storm to clear and rebalance nature.
Last night was an all-nighter, the blow-out and the storm.

Today we woke to warm weather and partly cloudy changing to warm sun.
We are changed for good or ill. Painful things were said. Tender things were cried.
We said the unsaid and the unsayable.
We go on.

Long Talk About Love

Could we even remember what began the conversation? This morning I can’t. It began Friday night—maybe Friday morning. It involved concert tickets, an old girlfriend, coming late to dinner, a clash of calendars, and what a particular word meant. Ah, the devil of two people who love words and who think that language really, really matters.

There was talking then crying. I cried, he cried, I cried, we cried. There was yelling, “Fuck you” from both parties both under the breath and then loud enough to shake the neighbors.

There was “You don’t listen”, and “No, you don’t listen”. Then there was careful and concentrated listening. There was “This is what I am trying to say” as we both struggled to form the right words and struggled inside ourselves for—“What is it that I really want to say?”

We moved together and apart. Went to meetings, practice, errands, and the kitchen. Clothes on and clothes off. The hope appeared in the form of laughter—finally—even as we were saying, “Fuck you.” “Really”, he says, “That’s what I want.” “We should only fight naked” is my suggestion. “Then I’d keep trying to piss you off” he wisely offers.

The love never left the room is what I know now. We talked for days, spiraling then circling, coming back to “This is what I want.” Then a gentle night and lovely, comforting skin on skin. We wake in peace and he goes to get our Sunday donuts and the New York Times.