Messy

There are days when you just wake up and think to yourself, I need to call in sick to work today.  Not because you are sick or feeling unwell, but because the fabric of yourself is ripping open with the need to write.  The words are seeping from each seam.  The threads are taut from the pressure.  And you think to yourself, it’s not that I’m sick, so what do I call it?  What do I say to my boss when he asks what’s wrong?  Do you say, “I’m overfilled?” Do you say, “I’m bursting.”

I have been thinking a lot about how messy life is.  When I started this blog, it seemed appropriate to dub it mudprophet.  I cannot claim credit for originally combining those two words.  I believe there is a band by that name, but the first time I saw them scribed together was almost thirty years ago fingered through a centimeter of dust layered over a window of a decrepit shed behind a chain link fence at the university I attended. Someone had crept over the fence, likely in the dark of night, to trace those words for others to see.  I wish smart phones had existed then.  Capturing the glitter of the clear glass through the grit in the dawn’s crest of light would have been a perfect instagram moment.  But I didn’t carry a polaroid camera around with me – the 80s closest equivalent to a digital camera – so I jotted down some notes and wrote a mediocre poem about it for Creative Writing 301.  The phrase rambled around the back of my mind for years.  Likely because I’ve always thought of myself as a ‘dirty little girl,’  all connotations intended.  I’ve never claimed the skill or magic of prophecy, but then a muddy prophet would hardly have great foresight, would she?

In 2014, I had my gallbladder removed because of gallstones.  It was a sudden decision into which I now feel a bit bullied.  The consequences of permanently extracting an organ were not laid out for me, and I still naively trusted in the efficacy and infallibility of modern medicine.  Later I learned that I had choices and that the removal of my gallbladder was preferred by insurance companies making it the protocol of choice at the sign of gallstones.  As I was recovering, I finally found the time to do research and devoured a number of books, but the one that I still own and appreciate the most is The Gallbladder Survival Guide by J Bernal.  This thin, independently published, volume stemmed from one man’s own experiences and research.  I liked the brutal honesty of the pragmatic advice.  My favorite take-away?  “Invest in black underwear.”

The tension between Sandy and I is a chafing pressure between the two plates of a slip fault.  The pressure builds each day.  Therapy sessions like last night vent but also grumble and leave debris to clear after.  This is new for us.  We don’t know how to deal with the clean up from a 4.5.  It’s as if we’re new to earthquake country.  Apparently, however, it is preferable to have a number of small quakes regularly as part of the evolution of the tectonics than to have silent still surface happiness while the pressure mounts beneath.  Living a regularly messy life results in less catastrophe than a long term clean and seemingly still one.  Over the long term the San Andreas fault should prove less devastating then the Cascadia one.  This likely surprises Sandy.

In last night’s session Jeff queried how Sandy felt when he thought about the prospect of a loved one like his mom or me dying.  He replied that he didn’t tend to think of those things.  Jeff suggested that Sandy avoided being around negative emotions – others’ like mine – but also his own.  Sandy volleyed back, why would you want to sit with negative emotions.  Why not just go numb and avoid them?  (I realized then that Sandy doesn’t like messy.  I, however, am all about messy.  I wonder sometimes what he ever saw in me.  Had I so carefully crafted a camouflage for my crazy?)  Jeff replied that being able to acknowledge and hold negative emotions allows one to empathize with others.  Something that he, Jeff, had observed that we lack when communicating: empathy.  It came as no surprise to me that Jeff saw a lack of empathy in Sandy.  Madeline had pointed out months ago that that what I was hungry for was Sandy’s empathy.  What caught me off guard, however, was wondering when I stopped empathizing with Sandy?  I, who have a hard time separating from other people’s feelings.  I, who have difficulty holding anyone accountable because I can understand and justify why they might have done what they did.  When did I stop considering the world from my husband’s eyes?  Maybe when I realized that he chose to ignore the grime?

Jeff described our discussions as robotic.  That is until I tearily began describing how I wanted this space – the therapy – to be a safe place for me to be vulnerable and to share grievances.  This frustrated Sandy further, he accused me of being completely different and unknown to him in our sessions.  And then he grew more frustrated when I said I didn’t feel safe to be this expressive at home.  Jeff intervened and suggested that we start with messy authenticity (my words, not his) in the sessions and work up to it at home.   I speculated that at some point I learned that it wasn’t safe to be vulnerable/emotional at home.  Jeff suggested that it may have preceded our relationship altogether.  As I ponder it now, I suspect he’s correct.

Well past infancy and diapers, I have sat in my own shit, at least metaphorically.  I have climbed into closets and bathtubs and hidden under covers and bawled ferociously and wailed at the prospect of life and the inglorious grossness of it all.  In my teens, I began journaling the filth.  The words a flow of emotions that made it possible for me to trudge through another day of muck.  I stopped writing and journaling when Sandy and I started dating.  Over the years I have curled up in my bed and sobbed a few times, but there are no longer any closets large enough to climb into and no tubs in our house deep enough or behind locked doors.  I had not vented or relieved the stress of the mess for years.  For the last year, I have been painfully re-learning to write.  I have no idea if this will save our marriage.  If Sandy can or will feel for the shitty, messy girl hiding beneath the guise of his wife.  It’s probably not what he signed up for when we married.  But nothing stays static.  Nothing is as we thought it would be.

There should be paid time off for days like today.  Days when you need to call in messy.