I asked him a simple question: "what's your biggest fear concerning us?" He couldn't answer, although I know he has at least one. We were driving this morning when I asked, and the thought popped into my head in a continuation of the conversation we had the night before. I told him that there is a small but significant part of me that worries one day he'll decide he's done. For whatever reason, one day he will walk.
But I guess in broad daylight he couldn't figure out his biggest fear. I think his answer was something about kids or something I couldn't assuage. That was my goal, anyway, in asking. Goal diverted.
He came to tuck me in, and tell me what he had just spent the last 2 hours talking to my cousin about: "you," he said. "How much I love you. How much I want to be with you forever. You're independent spirit, how I'll said you'll change." I internally bristled. I am proud of my independent spirit. "Oh yeah? Hmpf." That was my reply. "I thought that might shut you up." I know he meant that in jest, but you know me...if I feel affronted I will lash back. "Now I'm just trying to figure out how to shut you up." That was me lashing out. He hugged me tighter and said even though that hurt I still love you.
There was silence. I had nothing to say to that. Nothing that would make him feel any better. I had negated all he said concerning his feelings for me and concentrated on the part where I would change. "I finally have an answer to your question." For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what my question was. I asked. His response: that when I ask you to marry me, someday, you'll say no. And if we get past that and you do say you'll marry me that you won't walk all the way down the isle. That was his fear. Again, I had nothing to say. He spoke to the back of my head. I did not turn around. I shushed him and he held me tighter.
Now that he has gone to bed and I'm awake, I can't think of why that entire exchange happened the way it did. I think I have come to the conclusion that I have spent entirely too much of my life building myself one way that to lose that part of myself would be to lose my edge.
But I am realizing that edges hurt. People get cut on them. He gets cut on them. He bleeds. He gets hurt. Again and again. Perhaps changing and smoothing out that edge isn't a bad thing. Perhaps it's part of growing up and growing into someone else. Perhaps I can change. There is this part in my favorite poem "The Hound of Heaven" "My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me/And smitten me to my knee;/I am defenseless utterly." I am feeling hewn, or perhaps I need to be. My harness is my edge. My harness is my coldness. My harness is my defense against abandonment. And I fear, when it is completely hewn from me... I will lose me, or perhaps be afraid of what I might find.
But I guess in broad daylight he couldn't figure out his biggest fear. I think his answer was something about kids or something I couldn't assuage. That was my goal, anyway, in asking. Goal diverted.
He came to tuck me in, and tell me what he had just spent the last 2 hours talking to my cousin about: "you," he said. "How much I love you. How much I want to be with you forever. You're independent spirit, how I'll said you'll change." I internally bristled. I am proud of my independent spirit. "Oh yeah? Hmpf." That was my reply. "I thought that might shut you up." I know he meant that in jest, but you know me...if I feel affronted I will lash back. "Now I'm just trying to figure out how to shut you up." That was me lashing out. He hugged me tighter and said even though that hurt I still love you.
There was silence. I had nothing to say to that. Nothing that would make him feel any better. I had negated all he said concerning his feelings for me and concentrated on the part where I would change. "I finally have an answer to your question." For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what my question was. I asked. His response: that when I ask you to marry me, someday, you'll say no. And if we get past that and you do say you'll marry me that you won't walk all the way down the isle. That was his fear. Again, I had nothing to say. He spoke to the back of my head. I did not turn around. I shushed him and he held me tighter.
Now that he has gone to bed and I'm awake, I can't think of why that entire exchange happened the way it did. I think I have come to the conclusion that I have spent entirely too much of my life building myself one way that to lose that part of myself would be to lose my edge.
But I am realizing that edges hurt. People get cut on them. He gets cut on them. He bleeds. He gets hurt. Again and again. Perhaps changing and smoothing out that edge isn't a bad thing. Perhaps it's part of growing up and growing into someone else. Perhaps I can change. There is this part in my favorite poem "The Hound of Heaven" "My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me/And smitten me to my knee;/I am defenseless utterly." I am feeling hewn, or perhaps I need to be. My harness is my edge. My harness is my coldness. My harness is my defense against abandonment. And I fear, when it is completely hewn from me... I will lose me, or perhaps be afraid of what I might find.
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