The last time I was comforted by a shower cry was about eleven years ago, in the days after the man who manipulated me into a twisted form of sexual abuse was arrested for killing his wife. Not my favorite time. But the shower crying helped.
The impetus for today's shower cry wasn't a single event; it was more a culmination of events that had their own space and time, like those old-fashioned slide projectors: I hurt my back. Click to the next slide. I got into the routine of reading novels while resting my back. Click. I told the Sous Chef how much I loved coming home and diving into a good book for the evening. He cautiously commented, "But when does that give you time to work out?" Click. A few days later, I told him his comment was still bothering me, that it felt like he thought I was lazy. Click. A few days after that, and I bring it up again - it's still bothering me. During this discussion, he tells me that there is a part of him that thinks I won't succeed at getting fit. That when I told him I was done with the gym, his heart sank.Click to a blank, blindingly white screen. The show is over.
Two days later, and I'm crying in the shower while he's still asleep in our bed. That record, that neural pathway that I had kidded myself into thinking had been rewired, played over and over again. You're fat and lazy and disgusting. Everyone knows it. Your own husband doesn't believe in you. You will never beat this. There's a reason this is the one thing you haven't been able to accomplish - it's because you're a fat, lazy FAILURE.
The love of my life was slumbering three feet away from me, and I felt utterly alone.
I tried freezing him out; I was angry that he would turn on me like that. How could he not see that I already think all those things he said? That I am terrified that one day, I'll move a fraction of an inch in the wrong direction, and my ruptured disc will migrate over to a major nerve, rendering me helpless? How can he not know that I am doing the best I can?
The freeze-out didn't last long; I love the bastard too much. The words exploded out of me as I made my morning protein shake, my vision blurring as I tried to peel the bitter pith off of an orange. The summation of our discussion: I can take tough love from Dr. Fat Ass, or my old crew coach, or someone outside of my safe bubble. But Sous Chef is in me; he's half of my heart, he's the only other person inside my bubble. Judging from how I feel right now, if he gives me tough love, I simply crumble.
I have to change. I have to work on this. As much as I thought I was an independent, successful woman, the events of the last week have proven that I do care too much about what he thinks; that he really is my Rock, when the only Rock I should have is the one buried deep within my bones, where no one can touch it.
The lotus evolved so that the very muck that surrounds it sustains it. If it hadn't adapted, it would have withered away eons ago and we may have never known of its existence. But it was stronger than its circumstances, so we do.
I can't row anymore. I can't run. I can't join a boot camp class. I can't do aerobics. I have to learn how to be strong, in the midst of the muck of a broken back. I have to evolve so that the muck sustains me.
I'm not mad at Sous Chef anymore. I still feel wounded, yes, but his words came from a place of complete love, not criticism or hate. I feel wounded because he hit a nerve; he hit my inner Rock - a rock which I have neglected, to the point where it can't hold up against a storm.
I took some time to be alone and did the grocery shopping for the week. I picked up a bottle of wine on my way home from the store; it's a white blend that Sous Chef and I first enjoyed nearly a decade ago, on one of our first holidays together, at a time when a hit of tough love from him wouldn't have even made me flinch. I needed it today; I needed to remind myself of our history, of our long and road-tested journey.
The irony of the wine's name didn't occur to me until I was on my way home:
Evolution.
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