Changing My World

Today was a hard day. I had a glimmer of hope yesterday morning after laughing with Dearest One the night before. First belly laugh in a long time. I'm not sure why I thought that meant there would be a straight line from glimmer of hope to healing, but I did.

I'm spending much of my time doing handwork these days and that involves untangling yarn from the middle of the skein. I should have my own  brand of yarn named This Is What Healing Looks Like. A mess. That's what it looks like. Doesn't mean it isn't happening.

Sleep was elusive last night. My brain busy. It follows that getting dressed today felt like too much. Late morning I remembered -  there's that thing called supper.  Supper time came around and I went into the kitchen, looked at what I had taken out to cook and walked out again. I repeated this several times until Dearest One came home from work and we ordered supper in.

There were tears tonight in the midst of a normal conversation. I'm sensitive to anything that smacks of me feeling like I don't have a voice. I jabbed at him with a light, but effective, verbal punch. I cried when I realized what I'd done.

I'm grateful that Dearest One and I have done such hard work in becoming each other's person that when words get misconstrued and conversation starts going sideways, when tears fall and harms need to be made right on either side, we can talk and reassure one another; sinking into vulnerability as the place to connect with one another. It took us nearly 35 years to get to this place in our marriage. Previously we pinged off each other's trauma and piled more baggage onto our journey.

This work is worth it no matter how hard it is on days like today. It may not be changing anyone else's world but ours. I am grateful.