Things have been stressful around here lately. If you've read my Thackering blog posts, this should be obvious, because when I'm stressed I deal with it SO WELL. I start wishing I were dead, which is, I'm sure, the most positive way to deal with my stress. I start wishing that everything around me were changed or gone. Screw my house, my kids, my husband, my furniture, my life.
Stress and I aren't best friends.
During all this, I've been talking to my husband, Rob, about how things have been going. About the stress taking its toll, and about wanting to keep myself on the good side of the Sanity Line. For a while, it was close. But Rob is very supportive. I told him that I needed him to step up his game in terms of shouldering more of the emotional strain. He reacted immediately. Rob is amazing.
Amazing or not, though, I'm tired. Tired of living and tired of being tired and just Tired. When I say it in other terms, I feel lame. But it's the way it is, so I'll let it be.
I had a few dreams. Strange dreams. In the first one, I was engaged to Rob, but I had decided to call it off. There we were, in our house (we'd already bought a house together), with all our family present to hear our I Do's, and I wasn't sure I wanted to get married after all. I was in some distress. I knew I loved him, but I didn't want to say yes.
So in my dream Rob got really, really charming. He pulled out his "resist these if you dare" puppy dog eyes. The ones that make it obvious how much he adores me. And then he held me in his arms until I melted and he whispered in my ear, "Say 'yes.'" I said, "No." And he whispered in my ear until all my defenses were gone, what little I had left after being blasted with lovey-dovey love, and I said yes.
And then I was happy.
In the next dream, a week later, Ross, a kid I grew up with, asked me to marry him. He declared his everlasting devotion to me. And then he said this, which was a weird thing to say, "And if you can't agree to be my wife, then will you at least be my girlfriend?" Who asks that? Then he gave me those "resist these if you dare" puppy dog eyes and I knew that Ross was really Rob.
But I was torn, in this dream. I knew I loved him, but I also knew I didn't want to marry him. I kept thinking, "No, no, no. It's too much. It's too hard." And he'd look at me, from across the room, with those eyes and that smile. And I'd want to cry because I felt so bad that this man wanted so desperately to marry me and make me happy, and I was in so much distress over it.
So I said, "I can be your girlfriend. That's easy. I love you." And Ross/Rob said, "I knew that'd be easy." And then I went on to tell him that I didn't know if I could marry him, love or not. And Ross/Rob was okay with that. He just wanted to be with me.
This was a disturbing dream. At least in the first one I eventually said yes.
And so I talked to Rob about it, in real life. I told him that the dream was really just a reflection of what I've been feeling but not wanting to say. Things are hard right now and I'm a little mad about it, and I'm not happy with it, and even though I have no reason to call anything quits, it sounds "good" in some ways. To walk away from the stress, and then everything would go away.
And, again in real life, Rob looked at me and said, "Will you marry me?" We have been asking each other this question every month or so since we got married. Usually it's me asking him, BEGGING him, to marry me. He always says yes. But that day it was Rob asking me and I said no. He asked me again. I said no again, but that I'd take care of his kids.
Rob's eyes changed just a little. It took me half a second to realize what that change was, but then I knew it: his eyes were registering pain. Rob was hurt. (What kind of man feels hurt and the only indication is a slight change in his eyes? Seriously, this man is amazing.) And so I said, like in my dream, "I'll be your girlfriend." Rob was okay with that.
Let me tell you that, after spending a few intimate moments with this man, refusing to be his wife while in reality BEING his wife, and with him so desperately wanting me to love him back and be his forever, I felt SO BAD. Less than half an hour's time passed before I told him I'd be his wife again.
Lessons learned:
1 - The stress has got to stop.
2 - I'm half-crazy.
3 - Rob is irresistable.
( ... And the next night I had a typical married-to-Rob dream. We were married and trying to figure out High School. This is a recurring dream of mine: trying to navigate High School while being married to Rob and sometimes also trying to figure out day care for our kids. Clearly, this dream means that "I loved Rob before I met him" (in real life I didn't know Rob in high school), and also that I really, truly hated High School. )
The End
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