my weekend...

saturday...
(this blog came about as my hubby & i
had a heated argument (*well it's been a long while since we had one)
...we were on our way to catch the ferry
to spend some time with our little boy & a few friends
in the city, to have lunch...
& these are my musings about what happened...

missed the boat again...
i wonder sometimes, if i have totally missed the boat???
the one with a flag waving "Marital Bliss"...
or a cruise that advertises smooth sailing...
altho. i'm old enough to realize that's just false advertising
& that any relationship esp. a marriage,
especially a 2nd marriage with kids!
...one from a previous marriage & one from this...
is not always going to be smooth sailing,
there's bound to be a lot of rough patches of wind
& storms that can really rock the boat....
a lot of disagreements & misunderstandings
before the understandings set it...
but we've been married 5 years now...almost six in the summer...
& still...
Marriage is a lot of work...i know,
but why does mine seem like too much effort
just to stay afloat???
& when the littlest thing gets blown out
into another exchange of bitterness & venom...
it can get pretty toxic...
another fight over
"who started it all,
who got mad first,
who is losing his temper now,
who is really immature???
there u go again!
You're always like this!"
all this useless pointing fingers when
it is so damned obvious to me,
(i don't understand why he doesn't get it!)
that the finger that's doing all the pointing
should really be pointed back at yourself first...

& there i go again wondering...where did i go wrong?
when even the most petty things escalate into
an unrecognizable anger...on both our parts...
an untrained mind's reaction to somebody else's untrained mind...
who wins in the end???
who wins at war anyway?
any kind of war,
from the smallest war of words between couples,
friends, lovers & enemies...
to the bigger picture...like...
our war with Iraq...
who really wins when everybody gets hurt
one way or another,
whether physically, mentally...
or the deeper emotional wounds
that leave some pretty deep but invisible-to-the-eye scars...

that's why i told him (my husband)
when he accused me once again of always wanting to win...
i just stopped myself from getting any madder,
& maybe stopped him dead on his tracks...
by saying...
"No, i know I lost in this one...
I am really the loser here..."
this war between us...
i admit that I totally lost...
& miserably failed in our marriage...
but just for him to remember this same
conversation...cause it keeps repeating,
& repeating, as tho beating
a dead horse with a stick."

& now that i'm learning to admit my defeat,
i need to retreat,
in my own world where i feel safer again...
where i don't need to take anybody's judgements of me...
especially from one who's supposed to be my partner in Life?!
what kind of a life would that be???
hopefully here in my retreat
i will find some peace of mind...
hopefully as it became uncomfortably quiet between us...
he'll remember this conversation...
for its same accusations,
same waste of precious energy...
being blamed that i have once again
succeeded in ruining his day...our day...
i hope he will remember this conversation
one day when (not IF) I finally leave,
cause it holds the very same reasons why
i need to leave in the first place...
it's not because i'm selfish as he always accuses me of...
but it's because i need to be selfish
& take care of my own sanity,
find that quiet,
that peace,
& slowly work my way around
finding my balance again...

All he could say to me
to end this ferris-wheel conversation,
was ...
this is what i do...
when things get a little tough,
is that i want to leave & give up,
& talk about divorce again...
always ends up to be me
who's always on the wrong side...
& i just shrugged it off once again...
another carousel ride for me.

& in the thick silence,
our little boy who sat quietly through all this,
said in his sweet & all-knowing little voice,
"Mommy,
& I said, "Yes baby?"
"I love you"
& i almost choked, but kept quiet,
& he goes on to say...
"But I love Daddy too."
& i said,..."I know, Baby...
I love you too..."
& he replied:
"I'm sick of all this talking,
& all your fighting..."
...& both my hubby & i kept very still
& feeling ashamed, i know i did...
of our oh-so-grown-up ways of being,
& it's our little 5-year old
who can make more sense of it,
who can cut through all the bullshit,
we're putting him through...
& it gets clearer to me by the second...
& i said, "Sorry Baby"...
but my husband didn't...
he just kept on driving with his stone-cold face...
probably thinking i'm the only one who should be sorry...

well, maybe...
maybe it's time to face the music
that we haven't been really up to facing...
time to admit that we have both failed,
miserably to make each other happy...
we've been staying together for the sake of
"Family" with a big fucking F,
i know we were only trying
to do the right thing...
by staying together
for our son's sake,
& my daughter who's 13...
they could probably only take
so much upheaval in their young life
... then followed by my depression...
another year of waiting things out...
another year of needing support from all my family,
until the horizon kinda clears a little...

but now...
it's plain to see,
how we're just so wrong for each other,
how no one of us is right
when the other always makes
the other one wrong...
when it's only a warped mirror
reflecting on yourself...
who's right, who's wrong
doesn't really matter in the end...
two people trying to be right all the time
turns out all wrong....

& that i think is how
we totally missed the boat...


* after the boat ride
where we just avoided talking
& i was left to write these notes in my notepad...
we were cool with each other...
but we spent the day
mostly pretending that nothing's wrong between us...
we managed to have a great time,
thanks to the neutralizing effect of friends & some strangers...
at least we were forced to be decent to each other...
then we walked a long way down from
Chinatown to the Village with those same nice friends,
& managed to pass the time away quite nicely...
thanks again to those friends,
& our child's magical ability to be in the moment,
forget about past hurts,
& not yet knowing what a war of pride is all about...

thank God for that,
my friends & my kids...
i think i can stay afloat a little bit longer
just to set things straight between us.

- J