It’s fascinating what a difference a day makes.
Thursday was a day. Thursday was such a day. It hurt. It was also a day of growth that propelled me into today. Maximum amount of growth from a maximum type of experience.
This morning someone said something that reminded what Chris and my communication looked like at the start of our relationship. There was an obscene amount of us being present for one conversation, but experiencing two wholly different conversations. Our very different sets of experiences and baggage provided very skewed filtered translations of our words.
I’d repeat back to him what he said, but really what I was repeating back was what I heard (how I translated it), and he wouldn’t understand what the hell I was talking about. Or worse yet, I’d tell him and he’d get mad I took it that way, which only served to make me feel more terrible. Or sometimes I would have said something once and maybe even off cuff, and then a year later he’d be like “well, I’ve never done this thing because this one time you said you didn’t like it”…. and I’d have no recollection of saying that and would have had no issue with this random thing he wanted to do, but had never done.
We spent a lot of time navigating that. Until we maybe didn’t have to navigate it so much? And we were just on the same page most of the time.
And then life, as it is wont to do, got bigger and deeper and more layered. And perhaps we took the communication for granted and the translators surfaced again unbeknownst to either of us.
There are things that I felt on Thursday–things I wrote–that are totally valid. And then there are other things that were filtered through a broken translator. Things that were filtered through pain I have compartmentalized and avoided. It doesn’t make them any less valid. It doesn’t make them any less real. It just makes them…not the truth.
Part of the defective translator is my long past experiences and apparently not having properly explored them. There have been times I felt slighted or dismissed or overlooked and I react from those moments. Not because I’m mad. But because it hurts. I support him because it’s in my nature to do so. I want to feel it in return. He is supportive in other ways, but it’s not the same to me.
Another aspect is a fresh wound. The fresh wound has been something I haven’t wanted to peel the bandaid off of to look at yet. I haven’t been ready. I don’t know what I’ll find exactly and also I don’t know whose help I’ll need to employ. Will a nurse do? Or do I need a surgeon? Can the wound be cleaned and heal with time or is the whole limb a lost cause? Will the body survive the loss of limb? So, I keep the bandaid on.
And mostly it is fine.
Every now and again “mostly” leaves and “not fine” shows up.
For now, I know that no matter the solution I choose for healing it, I need to make the choice soon.
I tangented tho. The point I was wanting to make is that Thursday I translated communication through my pain (and maybe Chris translated through his something as well) and I was inaccurate. He didn’t think the enneagram was stupid and he didn’t think me stupid for having interest in it. He took a quiz today and listened to some of the Rise Together podcast episode about it and seemed genuinely interested in it, just the way that I hoped. And I hoped it because he is such a bright light and for too long he has been trying to dim himself.
And I guess now begins some me/us work because all the things I’m feeling and protecting just under the surface only serve to dim bright light as well.
I’m nothing if not the girl who finally catches up to remember I practice what I preach.