I was having one of those weeks where everything felt big except me.
I’d come home from work. Heat up some food. Pull out a TV tray. Eat. Lay in bed. Sleep.
I was adjusting, like so many, to a grimmer awareness of the world. It was like someone mowed the grass and I’m daunted to have discovered how many snakes were there all along as I sunbathed in cheery progressing warmth.
I’m also adjusting to a new living situation.
That pairing of words, “living situation,” politely implies that something heated and grotesque is boiling under a tepid surface — cohabitation out of necessity — but that’s not the case here.
We’re just settling in, Justin and I.
But, that week at least, it was too much for me. Too much changing. Too much not knowing. I needed to sleep.
On night three of 12+ plus hours of sleep, Justin asks what is wrong.
“I’m sick maybe.”
“Or you are sad.”
I am sad, so this comment makes me pull my mind’s curtain’s tighter with white knuckle anger.
“I want a couch. More furniture. All I have to lay on is this stupid bed that doesn’t even have a bed frame and so of course I fall asleep by 7 pm. I want to feel like a woman! How can I do that in this place?! What are we even doing with our lives?!”
What I’m really saying is that I feel powerless. He knows, and shields himself from my fire breathing with his knowing.
The next evening I come home from work and Justin is on the living room floor, screwing together a bed frame.
We don’t say much about it, but I know this him building a better cocoon for me to hide in when I don’t want to look outside anymore.
I go to bed early that night again. But the next night I don’t. And the night after that I don’t either. Quietly, he’s lifted me back up to where it is bright.
Love is simple, mostly.
Let’s remember that as we start to get to the work of tying the snakes into bows.
