In the Bleak Midwinter
Tonight, as with many nights lately, the stresses of my life all seemed to be bearing down on and squeezing me from all sides at once. Our lives have become so full of concerns and aspirations that I find it difficult sometimes to catch my breath, and easy to forget I'm not alone.
The latest, most exciting news is that Mikel and I are buying a home together. This is the first of many things we can do together, but alone would have been incapable of doing. It's the fulfillment of a dream for both of us; we long to get out of the apartment we live in--rapidly shrinking as I bring in more of my things, and we buy more together. It has not been easy! Buying a house would ideally be a joyful time full of excitement and planning for the future. Not so for us, I'm afraid.
There have been break-in scares while it lies vacant, surprise costs, inspections to schedule, appointments to set up (and wait for), and many times my eyes have snapped open in the middle of the night with some horrible fear that we are missing some vital element that somebody else would have seen right off and avoided.
At the same time, there is the wedding, which I still have not wavered in my determination to make beautiful--if small--and unique. But some of those I would be inviting see my choices as an insult to their own beliefs, which has definitely caused me some angry tears.
My Celtic wedding, on a Wednesday because that is when New Year's Eve falls on the Celtic calendar, is not meant to be an insult. It is not meant to be seen as "weird" or anti anything. It is a celebration of who Mikel and I are, and how we found each other after parallel struggles for life in our youth, and the fact that we share so much more than a similar medical history.
He is a paraplegic and I use a walker; both of us are well aware of what it's like to struggle with what the world calls "accessibility." We have both had Hydrocephalus (excess fluid around the brain), which I continue to deal with while his main problems come from his paraplegia. He also has to manage life with a fused spine, and Type 2 Diabetes. I am constantly setting things lower so he won't have to strain to see or reach them. This means I often have to bend over when I would rather not, but we are learning to deal with it. For the new house our first major purchase will be a refrigerator tall enough that I won't have to stoop--as with the one here--and a freezer at the bottom, so he will be able to reach most of the important stuff.
I have also found an aptitude for sign language that I never knew I had within me. Mikel is teaching me sign language because the chemotherapy to treat the tumor on his brain stem left him legally deaf.
But one of the most remarkable things I noticed when I first moved in last summer was how easily we understood each other. I had surgery to shrink a cyst on my brain stem when I as little, then frequently for years after that. In fact although my spin is not fused like Mikel's, at some places it might as well be, because there is so much scar tissue at the base of my skull, I can not touch my chin to my chest! Still, I have held onto knowledge of the American Sign Alphabet since I did I report on the life of Helen Keller in middle school. That helped enormously in those early days of my new life.
Now I add a number of actual signs to my repertoire, though there are things within our relationship that don't need words. We have both felt the exact same pain; we both know what it's like to have the base of your head hurt so much you bargain with the nurses for a strong enough pain killer to touch it. I never though I would meet some one who could beat me at a game of "whose story is more painful"--but Mikel's stories shut me up every rime. This is a huge relief. For most of my life I have thought that I would always be the one with the saddest story in a group; a very depressing thought indeed. It's delightful to know there is some one out there who not only understands this part of me, but can be the one to take that glaring spotlight off me:)
In my mind I always return to these things we have in common, and the knowledge that weakness in body makes you strong in mind. That makes Mikel one of the strongest people I have ever met, and certainly up to the challenge of being strong for me. This is another thing I never thought I'd find in anyone. And I looked--far and wide for many, many years.
Another thing we share is a passion for writing that has stayed with us and sustained us for our entire lives. There was a time in my life, right after surgery in 1998, when I could barely hold a pen and my words were unintelligible. Yet I dreamed of romance, poetry, beauty and the written word--an escape, really, into something that seemed a million miles away, yet somehow not beyond my grasp.
I never would have imagined all those years ago--or even in the years since--that some one with dreams exactly like mine was "out there." And yet there he was; the impossibly strong, passionate, understanding, kind, honest soul I'd been looking for. True, he's not the package I dreamed of as a swooning teenager, but we do grow up. We learn to find our heart's desire in places we didn't expect.
Sensing the tension I (admittedly) wear on my sleeve all too often, Mikel has shown infinite patience today. He has helped assuage my anxiety about all we still have to pack by helping me pack twice as many boxes as I'd hoped to this weekend, all before lunch. He has given me time to rest, helped me deal with an invitation misprint, and shown me infinite patience and love when I surely least deserved it!
Best of all was tonight, after turning me onto a young romantic movie with one of my favorite songs unexpectedly at the focus. After a while, Mikel told me: "go to the window. Go slowly, be quiet."
So I crept up to the sliding glass door and edged aside the vertical blinds. Somehow my heart was pounding; after that romantic movie I was ready for Mikel to sweep me off my feet.
There, tiptoeing through the thick blanket of silent white snow, the dim light from inside our apartment casting them in shadow, were three gorgeous, graceful, full-grown deer. Wildlife beyond tiny little woodland birds is a rarity in Grand Rapids; these three deer were like a miracle.
Beaming, thrilled with my surprise, I turned back to Mikel. The living room cascades with boxes and packing refuse, but for once all I saw was him, smiling at me. "I thought it would cheer you up," he said. Deer are sacred to Celtic beliefs. To me, they represent the new magic he has brought to my life, and the joy his presence means. And whatever lies ahead, I know these little delights will keep coming when I least expect them but need them more than anything.
The latest, most exciting news is that Mikel and I are buying a home together. This is the first of many things we can do together, but alone would have been incapable of doing. It's the fulfillment of a dream for both of us; we long to get out of the apartment we live in--rapidly shrinking as I bring in more of my things, and we buy more together. It has not been easy! Buying a house would ideally be a joyful time full of excitement and planning for the future. Not so for us, I'm afraid.
There have been break-in scares while it lies vacant, surprise costs, inspections to schedule, appointments to set up (and wait for), and many times my eyes have snapped open in the middle of the night with some horrible fear that we are missing some vital element that somebody else would have seen right off and avoided.
At the same time, there is the wedding, which I still have not wavered in my determination to make beautiful--if small--and unique. But some of those I would be inviting see my choices as an insult to their own beliefs, which has definitely caused me some angry tears.
My Celtic wedding, on a Wednesday because that is when New Year's Eve falls on the Celtic calendar, is not meant to be an insult. It is not meant to be seen as "weird" or anti anything. It is a celebration of who Mikel and I are, and how we found each other after parallel struggles for life in our youth, and the fact that we share so much more than a similar medical history.
He is a paraplegic and I use a walker; both of us are well aware of what it's like to struggle with what the world calls "accessibility." We have both had Hydrocephalus (excess fluid around the brain), which I continue to deal with while his main problems come from his paraplegia. He also has to manage life with a fused spine, and Type 2 Diabetes. I am constantly setting things lower so he won't have to strain to see or reach them. This means I often have to bend over when I would rather not, but we are learning to deal with it. For the new house our first major purchase will be a refrigerator tall enough that I won't have to stoop--as with the one here--and a freezer at the bottom, so he will be able to reach most of the important stuff.
I have also found an aptitude for sign language that I never knew I had within me. Mikel is teaching me sign language because the chemotherapy to treat the tumor on his brain stem left him legally deaf.
But one of the most remarkable things I noticed when I first moved in last summer was how easily we understood each other. I had surgery to shrink a cyst on my brain stem when I as little, then frequently for years after that. In fact although my spin is not fused like Mikel's, at some places it might as well be, because there is so much scar tissue at the base of my skull, I can not touch my chin to my chest! Still, I have held onto knowledge of the American Sign Alphabet since I did I report on the life of Helen Keller in middle school. That helped enormously in those early days of my new life.
Now I add a number of actual signs to my repertoire, though there are things within our relationship that don't need words. We have both felt the exact same pain; we both know what it's like to have the base of your head hurt so much you bargain with the nurses for a strong enough pain killer to touch it. I never though I would meet some one who could beat me at a game of "whose story is more painful"--but Mikel's stories shut me up every rime. This is a huge relief. For most of my life I have thought that I would always be the one with the saddest story in a group; a very depressing thought indeed. It's delightful to know there is some one out there who not only understands this part of me, but can be the one to take that glaring spotlight off me:)
In my mind I always return to these things we have in common, and the knowledge that weakness in body makes you strong in mind. That makes Mikel one of the strongest people I have ever met, and certainly up to the challenge of being strong for me. This is another thing I never thought I'd find in anyone. And I looked--far and wide for many, many years.
Another thing we share is a passion for writing that has stayed with us and sustained us for our entire lives. There was a time in my life, right after surgery in 1998, when I could barely hold a pen and my words were unintelligible. Yet I dreamed of romance, poetry, beauty and the written word--an escape, really, into something that seemed a million miles away, yet somehow not beyond my grasp.
I never would have imagined all those years ago--or even in the years since--that some one with dreams exactly like mine was "out there." And yet there he was; the impossibly strong, passionate, understanding, kind, honest soul I'd been looking for. True, he's not the package I dreamed of as a swooning teenager, but we do grow up. We learn to find our heart's desire in places we didn't expect.
Sensing the tension I (admittedly) wear on my sleeve all too often, Mikel has shown infinite patience today. He has helped assuage my anxiety about all we still have to pack by helping me pack twice as many boxes as I'd hoped to this weekend, all before lunch. He has given me time to rest, helped me deal with an invitation misprint, and shown me infinite patience and love when I surely least deserved it!
Best of all was tonight, after turning me onto a young romantic movie with one of my favorite songs unexpectedly at the focus. After a while, Mikel told me: "go to the window. Go slowly, be quiet."
So I crept up to the sliding glass door and edged aside the vertical blinds. Somehow my heart was pounding; after that romantic movie I was ready for Mikel to sweep me off my feet.
There, tiptoeing through the thick blanket of silent white snow, the dim light from inside our apartment casting them in shadow, were three gorgeous, graceful, full-grown deer. Wildlife beyond tiny little woodland birds is a rarity in Grand Rapids; these three deer were like a miracle.
Beaming, thrilled with my surprise, I turned back to Mikel. The living room cascades with boxes and packing refuse, but for once all I saw was him, smiling at me. "I thought it would cheer you up," he said. Deer are sacred to Celtic beliefs. To me, they represent the new magic he has brought to my life, and the joy his presence means. And whatever lies ahead, I know these little delights will keep coming when I least expect them but need them more than anything.
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