The Thousand Words Those Pictures Say

At 10:50 am thirty-one years ago today I was in the Penthouse Suite of a hotel room in downtown Winston-Salem surrounded by the ladies of my wedding party getting primped and prepped for my evening wedding.  A photographer milled around the peripheral, quietly snapping photos in an attempt to capture the "feel" of this monumental event. During the flurry of activity, I recall more than once thinking, "What in the hell am I doing?" If I go back and look at those photos, boy can I clearly see that sentiment, each smile forced and the strains of worry and doubt written all over my face. And yet, I kept talking myself into it, telling myself all that smarmy crap about "love conquering all" and "happily ever afters". I wanted to believe the "fairy tale", in fact there was a damaged part of me that desperately needed to believe because it had been one of the few things holding me together for so long. Let me tell ya, that's a ton of pressure to put on two kids who knew absolutely jack about love.

As I thumb through old photo albums, I can clearly see on our faces the turmoil and mistakes, the happy moments interspersed at random spots along side of pain and regrets. Maybe he and I are the only ones who could really see those things from a photo because we had been living them. From the outside, perhaps it just seems like, "Oh, hey, there they are killing it all these years." Many have commented words that give weight to that supposition, however those few who really know us, know better. 

To be fair, the adults in our lives at the time did try to warn us..."You're too young to get married," they said. "You don't know what you're doing. Just wait," they told us. But we didn't understand. I mean, how could we? There wasn't enough life experience between us to know dammit about making a relationship "work". A "Leave it to Beaver" boy and a damaged little girl from completely different worlds trying to build that "happily ever after"and having zero clue how to make that happen. He joined the Air Force, we moved away and then SLAM! The Universe kicked us both in the teeth. Repeatedly.

I was knocking on the door to my thirties before I realized no-one was coming to save me from the new madness he and I had created. I found a way to pick myself up off the ground, where I was getting trampled, and take more "control" of my world. And honestly, I don't even know what my husband was doing at that time, because by then I'd completely checked out of our relationship. To my mind, we were living as glorified roommates who happened to be raising two girls together. 

One day, I couldn't even tell you precisely when, I woke up and things had dramatically changed. Somewhere along this whacky road, we'd grown up. Separate, yet together. He had become this loyal, responsible, romantic, loving man. I had found a way to make peace with all of my broken bits and turned in to this hyper-focused, driven, tenacious, wild, passionate woman. The girl who married him became the woman strong enough in her own right to no longer "need" him. And yet..

...as we started communicating on a deeper level about "what happened next", I found that the knight in shining armor I'd been praying for as a girl had become this man in dented, rusty armor...full of blood and mud, scratches and scrapes, who truly loved me, flaws and all. But better than that, somewhere along the way, he'd invested so deeply that he actually understood me, sometimes better than I understand myself. Somewhere along the way he had become "my person". I didn't even know how much I needed one of those until I recognized that's what he was.

Sometimes, when I'm wholly, brutally honest with myself, just how much I need it, I need him scares the crap out of me. I don't want to need him. I learned long ago at the knee of my grandmother that if you put weapons in other people's hands that can hurt you, sooner or later they will use them to cause you pain. And isn't that a reflection of every love gone wrong poem or song ever written? Being vulnerable is discombobulating. I don't like it. But love is a leap of Faith. Right? And I'm not talking about that frou frou love you see in storybooks or Rom-Coms. I'm talking that deep stuff you feel in your bones, that courses through your veins on every heartbeat and can make your heart hammer so hard it shakes your entire being. That love you give, that when you give it, takes away some of your power. You feel it, this tiny little weight of it, draining from you and going into the person you've given it to. The power that says, "You can hurt me in places so deep, that if you do, I might never recover." I'm pretty sure there's no picture that can capture that. 

As I go through the albums of old photos of my life, I see the trust, the faith and love I've given not just to that charming, goofy man who refuses to give up on me, but others, who've over the years become my Tribe. I remember those who've fallen away, either by chance or choice, and even though there's no physical photo for many of them, they are imprinted in my mind. We choose one another, or not. We hold on, or let go. We take chances on each other...and sometimes those chances burn hot and hard, then vanish into smoke and ash. It's the other times that keep us opening up, putting ourselves at risk...when the love we give heals us, soothes and comforts us. That love grows, becoming part of who we are in ways that are too beautiful for photographs. 

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