Fall

Ever since I became an adult, fall has been my favorite season of the year. The colors are vibrant before they turn drab. The temperature becomes comfortable so therefore being outside is more frequent and the electric bill even goes down. In my world there was no downside to it being fall. Until now. Now it is a season of fear and walking on eggshells and knowing that there is going to be an issue with the only variable being how bad and with who. It has become my season of anxiety.

Most of the time I try my best to put a positive note on as many angles of being a bi polar spouse as I possibly can, but during many falls, I cannot. I no longer have it in me. I am exhausted of living with the aggression, the passive aggressive actions or statements, the digs and looks on people's faces as they absorb the energy, the flip flopping of treatment the statement of "we have to talk" knowing that those words just mean that I have to sit and listen while he tells me all the reasons that he can't live like this anymore. I am exhausted of wondering if he would be better off or healthier without me. I am exhausted of wondering if my family would be better off if I caved and moved away with him. I am exhausted of walking on eggshells and dodging the passive aggressive actions or sighs of dissatisfaction. I am exhausted of trying to convince him that he lives in a good situation if he would only let it be. I am exhausted of walking around trying not to look or act exhausted anymore. It is cycle I don't even have the energy to want to find a cure for anymore. I used to reach for something to hope with or for. I used to research to see if I was missing the magic something that would allow us to move forward as a healthy family and couple. I used to pray that this counselor or that could make him see what was happening to his family right before his eyes and that would be enough to want to change. Now I just wait and avoid and try to not hear the words of the rest of the family who are affected so deeply that the littlest ones fingers bleed and the older ones turn on each other. I try to pretend that he is not making us out to be monsters to the members of his family that still like us. I try to pretend that it doesn't hurt that he speaks more frequently to the family members that can't stand us. I try to pretend that I am stuck and that this isn't a choice that I willingly make every day that I stay. I try to pretend that it doesn't hurt but it does. Sometimes it just does.

I hear my daughter downstairs crying because I finally got upset that she and her brother got into it verbally, and because I didn't take sides and told them both that I want to leave for a solo vacation. Meanwhile, I am hiding upstairs in my bedroom grateful that he is gone for the day so I can avoid life for the day without being questioned. I am a workaholic. I do not skip work without guilt but that just adds to my wanting to runaway. We are all raw., as we become every fall. We are not living the lives that God meant for us to live. Sadly the only time I really lay it all out and get honest about what everyone needs to do, or should be doing at this stage of life is when I am angry or ready to run. I then go directly into guilt that the childhood I provided them did not allow for the necessary growth or confidence to move on or select a good partner and the blame game occurs again. And then I know that I cannot run because what would happen if I did?

I have spent the better part of their lives overcompensating for what should have been teachable moments. I make excuses for my husband and ask them to live with what they should not have to live with because it is an illness. I always figured that it would be a relief for them that they would grow up and escape. Now that they are adults I make excuses for them as well. I blame myself for every shortcoming they have, feeling like I didn't do my job as a parent. My son says that the quality that makes me a great mom is the same quality that makes me a terrible mom, that my door is always open and I am here to help them pick up the pieces. I jokingly agreed with him but here is the thing. I don't actually think that makes me a terrible mom, to be here for my family. I think what makes me a terrible mom is that I didn't successfully give them the tools or the drive to reach higher than what is comfortable.

Yes, this is the truth of the roller coaster. Some days it is our turn to plummet. To fall faster than we thought was possible and still survive. The toughest days of this are when we run over our loved ones on the way down, when we cannot get away fast enough. The aftermath of those days is more guilt, as if we don't have enough. As we race towards the bottom there is always that feeling of being about to crash and then the track rounds out and the bumps smooth and the next thing you know you find that reason to smile again. There really in no choice. This is the life we choose on a daily basis to stay in so while it is our right to fall when we can't help but plummet, it is our responsibility to our spouse, our family and even ourselves to climb back up again.