Saturday, April 07, 2007

Questioning

I feel self conscious about writing. I feel self conscious about what others know about my relationship with Art. Suddenly, many things I have written are not OK to have shared or rather, it’s all been OK up till now. Up till this morning when I wrote a post and deleted it.

I don’t know what my head is thinking. Art continues to get better. He’s moved on from picking the kids up from camp three days this week to cooking two meals (although he admits that it wipes him out.) He orchestrated our family outing today. When people ask me how he’s doing, I beam. My smiling mouth muscles hurt from the grinning and watching people’s diverse reactions from tears to peels of joyous laughter (is there any other kind?) The way I feel when they ask is the same way I felt during our first year of marriage when someone asked me about our wedding. I stand at the center of warm, pure, good memory. Only with the cancer, the image is not of a moment but of a storm that is now in the distance.

But when I get home, and actually spend time with Art, I am in a place of resentment almost, of discontent. For several days, when alone in the car or house for more than 30 seconds, I wonder is this all there is? Is this what I fought so hard to preserve? What did I fight so hard to preserve? Him? Me? Us? There is no us right now. We fumble towards each other awkwardly trying to do things we used to but somehow falling short. When he kisses me, it’s like kissing a stranger, but not in the warm excited way but in a disturbed, not really sure I want to way.

I feel unsteady about myself, my wifing, and even my writing. I don’t know him. I don’t know myself in relation to him. And I am deeply uncomfortable with that knowledge.

6 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:09 AM

    Kim, you are correct to feel that your posting were out there - at times way out there - but they were shadows of your living reality. I have appreciated your shadows, and I have admired your devotion to Art. I am empathetic to your feelings now, at least everything you have posted. Please excuse me if this sounds off, but in ways your husband has been at war in a distant country. He's been away, alive in the face of death but away, and you have been operating double-if-not-triple-time to maintain normal. Now Art is back, as back as any vet can be, and it is right to feel different. I feel different. It's ok, everything you've done. Better than ok; it's amazing.You two are incredible.Hans

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  2. Anonymous5:50 PM

    "Be who you are and say what you want, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." -Dr.Seuss

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  3. Anonymous5:53 AM

    Yes, be proud of who you are! Your walls and "shields" have been burned to a crisp -- You have not been "out there." You have been IN there -- deeper inside than most fear to go. You do not even know us -- yet we have the pleasure and honor of getting to know you and Art -- not the phoney parts....so amazingly refreshing in a pure and so real way...

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  4. DO NOT HIT DELETE! Your writing is raw and honest. What you say matters. Do not silence a very important voice and know that you are loved for who you are and what you feel -- the good, the bad and the ugly.

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  5. Anonymous11:45 PM

    Maybe it's time to stop blogging, examine the reasons that you thought you needed to blog, then find a group or a counselor with expertise in the situation you and Art find yourself in.

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  6. Anonymous4:03 PM

    You're not out there, you're in there. You rallied and you jumped right into the center of it all! I'm so proud of you!

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