It's silly sometimes how often you have to re-learn the same information. You learn a hard lesson and you tell yourself to watch for certain things so that next time, you'll see it coming and you'll know what to do. Bella is teething terribly right now. It takes a long time for me to figure this out. Granted she only has six teeth right now, so I don't have a lot of experience in noticing the signs but I tell myself after every tooth, "Melanie, the next time you look at her and think, 'Who are you and what have you done with my sweet, happy baby?' - remember. She's probably just teething. Give her some space." Two months later I'm exasperated and can't figure out why she's SO grumpy and poof! A tooth pops through and I feel like a schmuck.
I'm realizing as I type that this may be an unflattering comparison, though I don't mean it to be so, but Peter is exactly like this. I remember after we got married, and he'd get into these moods and he'd just be in a funk for SO LONG. I'd try and make him a nice dinner when we were newlyweds and it wouldn't help. I tried ignoring him completely, a couple of years in. No luck there either. Suffice to say that by four or five years down the road and my tactics in dealing with this no longer involve dinner. I get annoyed. I try and make him tell me what's wrong, and in the classic words of men everywhere, he looks at me in a mixture of confusion and annoyance and says, 'nothing's wrong. I'm fine. What are you talking about? I'm not in a bad mood." It makes me laugh as I sit in the dark now and type, but at the time, it's the most infuriating thing. I know him. Peter is not the kind of guy who gets uptight when his plans get changed at the last minute. So when he does, I immediately try and figure out what the heck is going on. I usually start with myself. I've probably done something, said something, didn't say something, bought something, etc. I don't know how I manage to be that narcissistic and self-deprecating at the same time, but I make it work somehow. Who was is that said that in an unsolvable problem the simplest answer is usually the correct one? (or something to that effect?)
Peter needs to be outside. Don't get me wrong here. Peter doesn't like to hike, or snowboard, or camp. He must. He needs is in exactly the same way he needs to eat. He'd probably say more. He's not merely 'outdoorsy" or "rugged" as Luc puts it. When Peter goes too long without doing something that is as much a part of him and is as unchangeable as his eye color, or his faith, or his music, something in Peter slowly starts to die. And the pain of that part dying, makes him grouchy. He laughed the other day and said, "like a soul-less grump". It's truly like a bear with a sore paw. And like with the teething, I look at him and think, "Who are you? Where is the man I married? Stop being so ornery!" It should be noted that saying these things doesn't work. At. All.
So yesterday, I was fed up. I was sick of him being tired, being sick, being grumpy and I wasn't going to put up with it any more. I was going to get this dealt with. I put on my dominating wife hat (which I usually try to keep stuffed in a box somewhere - it looks terrible on me) and took matters into my own hands. And bought him a lift ticket to Mt. Washington. This morning I got up at the unholy hour of six to pack him a lunch. He protested when I told him he was going, just a little. "We can't afford it" was the argument of choice. Maybe he's right. But we can't afford not to. Because it's not about snowboarding. I told Reagan that he needed to go with him. I can't snowboard. And even if I could, Peter doesn't want me around today. He wouldn't want to say it, but it's very true. He needs to get up into the mountains and do something a little risky, something adventurous, something with another man. He needs to forget about being a husband and a father for a few hours and if I'm smart that won't offend me. Tonight, he'll come home and I'll have my husband back. No arguments, no fuss, no annoyances at each other. I'm learning after six years (can that be right?!) that when Peter becomes impossible to deal with, make him go outside. He's shouldering a lot of responsibility, and he'll never put himself first without a little nudging. I miss him, I've missed him for a couple of weeks, and I'll be happy to have him back.
Aren't we all like this? Peter's learned about me that every once in a while, I need to 'get away". Sometimes that means that I just need a morning in bed with a coffee and a book and to be alone. Every once in a while I need to be taken out to dinner. Not because of the dinner, but because I need to hear someone else say, "Good evening. What can I get for you?" and know that whatever mess I make, someone else will clean up. I am hardwired to travel. Sometimes that's a night away three minutes from the house, sometimes it's moving, sometimes it's just dinner or a book that takes me somewhere else. Everyone needs a few minutes sometimes to just be exactly who they are, with no restrictions, no rules, no roles that they've taken on. I'm not a wife, not a mommy, not anyone. I'm just me right now. I just want a coffee and a book and a few moments with no demands on my time. It lasts me a LONG while.
I love that God knows this about us. Doesn't he? Don't you ever notice how all of a sudden in the middle of a foul mood, you'll see the most beautiful sunset. You'll stop to grab a coffee while you're rushing around and discover the best latte in town. Here it's Mon Petite Choux. Your little girl will spontaneously kiss your face and say, "Ah ove oooh". Two seconds of total bliss in what can often be a nightmare world. I wonder how much of our stress and frustration is simply a result of not taking a moment in our lives to just do what is truly us. I think God built into Peter the part of him that comes alive in the outdoors. When my mom gets on the back of a horse you can literally watch her change - her face, her eyes, the set of her shoulders. Everything about her suddenly looks different and you know that you are seeing her the way God made her, doing something that God has built in her. This is a person living out their own private destiny, right in front of you. It's incredibly beautiful.
CS Lewis said it so much better, and SO MUCH more succinctly than I,
"It is a serious thing, to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no 'ordinary' people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations -- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit -- immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously -- no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption."
