Periods to Question Marks
More than anything being married has taught me what it is to worry. I mean, don't get me wrong, during our first year Ryan and I have both learned lessons about communicating and honesty. We've also learned about how to file for unemployment and that it's hard for a dude to change his name! But what I'm struck by most frequently is that I never knew what it was to worry about someone until I married Ryan.
I don't talk about us all that much because it's mushy and feels weird but in my new spirit of openness in the online arena, PREPARE THE BARF BAGS.
Speaking of barf bags, here's a cute aside. A few weeks ago I got salmonella poisoning and pretty much thought I was going to poop out my lower intestine while barfing up my lungs at the same time. It was the sickest I've been in years and I was totally miserable. And one night when I just really needed to sleep but was afraid to be far from the toilet Ryan introduced me to the Barf Box. I guess it's what his mom used to do for him as a sick kid. Basically he taped up a cardboard box and then covered the inside with paper napkins and stuff so it wouldn't splatter and put it by my bed explaining that it's better than using a trashcan or something because you can just throw it away.
I seriously thought I was going to cry. I'd been feeling so unhappy and gross and this loving little act of assembling something for me to throw up on was so funny and sweet. And I realized that Ryan worries about me too, but maybe in a different way.
For instance, a few months ago I was making dinner and realized I was out of milk and asked Ryan to run across the street to cold storage (which is what we call the gas station) and get me some. And he'd just been gone a few minutes when I heard the squealing of tires and I literally dropped what I was doing and sorta gasped "no" and like a slow motion scene in a movie ran to the front window to see....nothing. No accident, no carnage just the street. I was already in tears because so many bad things had happened to us that Ryan getting hit by a car while jogging acorss the street with a pint of milk in his hand seemed like the most likely next thing.
Every time he's out and I hear sirens I resist the urge to call his cell. Every Tuesday a meeting runs over at work or the Albertsons didn't have the frozen pizza I like so he had to spend twice as much time going to Kroger, all the times he shrieks from the other room only to yell out seconds later "I'm fine!" I feel the dread well up in me.
You hear parents talk all the time about how nerve racking it is when your kid first starts walking or spends the night away from home or gets their driver's license and they always remark on the occurrences with this awed sorta who-know-I-was-capable-of-worrying-that-much? tone. All I can think is..."Do I love my husband more that you love yours?" because the problem with saying to someone, "Hey, I'm with you. Like, forever." Is that it sorta becomes the plan.
Like, I've checked that off my list. Partner. Check. Your spouse is the ONE family member you ever get to pick and I picked Ryan. I don't know where I'll be in 30 years but I know Ryan will be there too. I don't know how we'll make ends meet some months but I know we'll do it together. I don't know a lot of shit but the one thing I know is that Ryan loves me and he loves me forever and he picked me and he'll keep on picking me.
And the idea that a car or a bloodclot or cancer or God know what could change all of those periods into question marks...it seems unreal. But it happens to people. It happens to people just like us all the time. I'm sure it happened dozens of times over just the other day in Haiti. And that breed of cold, clear, panic is something I've never known before.
The only thing I've come up with is to have Ryan call me if he imagines I might be worrying and to tell him I love him and to try not to think about the way sometimes innocent things kill people that others love. But I do wish there was another option.
I am the *queen* of imagining the worst. Can't get a hold of someone for a couple of days? They must have slipped in the bathroom and their bloody corpse is decomposing on the floor. Colin coughs in the other room? He is choking on his Coke and if I don't get out of bed immediately and perform the Heimlich he will surely perish. I don't know where I get it but I empathize wholeheartedly with your plight.