Flying with a tattered wing

How do you find your way forward when you are hurting?

Ben and spotted a stunning butterfly resting on our ground covering in the front yard - with a torn wing. It still flew away as gracefully as if it were uninjured. August, 2023

It was six o’clock on a Friday evening, early August. Ben and I scheduled a babysitter months in advance for a night out, and we decided to use our time away at Costco, stocking up on bulk food during what has become our quarterly shopping trip.

I’d been stewing all day about the new stressor in my (our) life: that four of our five children are finally, blessedly, in school. Until that week, no one except Sarah attended a traditional, brick-and-mortar school. Felicity, now in seventh grade, had been homeschooled since kindergarten. Veronica, of age for kindergarten, spent half day mornings in preschool two years ago at the height of COVID-19 and did not return. Joey and Auggie were too young.

Before the Costco date night, I learned that my main role in the family extended beyond that of unpaid part-time health care manager for Sarah’s diagnoses. Now, I could add unpaid part-time chauffeur to the growing litany of motherly duties. No transportation system exists for our kids’ private school. Students walk, ride their bikes, or have a designated adult pick them up in a vehicle.

I realize every day when I grudgingly pull out of the driveway that we are a privileged family: privileged to own not one, but two, working vehicles; privileged to be given the option for our kids to attend a private school. Insert daily guilt when this surfaces to conscious thought: I know I am fortunate to have access to resources that many do not, all because I have a vehicle. Then why am I so frustrated? All. The. Time?

In part, because I spend at least 30% (and I am estimating conservatively) of my time dealing with the red tape of the health care system for my daughter, Sarah, mainly. So, no, I don’t want to drive even more than I already do. And no, I don’t want to have an additional two hours of my day swept up by more driving.

What dampens my spirits is not that I have to drive, because I (mostly) accept that reality. It’s that every day new responsibilities add to my existing role, and I am stunned and appalled by the shocking news du jour: that our health savings company is denying our payments for 85 transactions since January 1st, so we now are obligated to provide itemized receipts; that Sarah woke up at 2 AM and decided to play with Felicity’s pop-its until everyone else got up at 6; that the CV axles in our aging SUV are failing and need to be replaced to the tune of over one thousand dollars.

It’s the too-much-too-soon-too-fast that knocks me to the ground. I can’t get my bearings, can’t even get up long enough before being ambushed by something else. That’s where my headspace was the evening Ben and I pulled out of the driveway for our date night to Costco.

Ben was clearly worn out from a long week, too. He sighed after buckling his safety belt, and I glanced in my periphery, noticing his dark circles and puffy eyelids. I told myself, I’m not going to talk. I think we both need this space to just breathe.

Shortly before we left, I was arranging my clothes on the vanity near our master bathroom, and Ben popped in to let me know Fiona, our babysitter, had arrived. Flustered, I fumbled with my jeans and t-shirt, then washed my hands and commented about how the adjustment of having the kids back in school so early proved to be a difficult transition for me. “I wish I didn’t have to drive more than I already do. And did you know I have several forms for school that they want completed by next week? I already filled out these forms online!” I lamented as I dried my hands.

“Let’s not ruin an otherwise calm day,” he responded. And I felt - as I had been feeling more often than not - unseen, unheard, and invalidated in my frustration and overwhelm. Maybe more than these, I did not feel that Ben shared in my frustration of domestic drudgery.

About halfway there, one of us spoke. I don’t recall who, and I don’t remember what was said. What I do remember is that my fuse had been lit, and I knew the conversation had become emotionally charged for me. At first, I stayed in my prefrontal cortex with great effort, concentrating on my tone of voice and remaining composed. But Ben kept pushing all the wrong buttons, and I snapped.

This has been our pattern the last few years: Ben says something I perceive as callous and dismissive, and I have no patience for it, so I raise my voice and begin the downward slope of verbal ventilation. He quietly fumes for a while until he yells back.

We continued our argument inside Costco, a first for us. We each had a cart and pushed them to a quiet corner of the technology department, but I couldn’t contain my anger. I flailed my arms and yelled in a loud whisper, while Ben pursed his lips and fiddled with his beard.

Because of the time limit to purchase our food and toiletries before the store closed, we both forced ourselves to cork the ire and move through the aisles and past strangers, speaking to each other as if everything’s fine.

I loathe contrived conversation and veneers of happiness when things are clearly not okay, but Ben and I had no good place and no good time in which to air our grievances. Thus, we resorted to whisper-shouting in Coscto. Until we shut up and plastered phony smiles on our faces in the presence of other shoppers, saying to each other, “Would you please grab a few bottles of the red blend?” or “I’d like you to get two packages of the paper towels” - saccharine but convincing.

We didn’t make eye contact in the checkout lane, but after sixteen years of marriage, Ben and I operate like a machine: efficient, effortless, no words necessary. He grabbed the larger items, like toilet paper and Kleenex, while I tossed the Manchego cheese, chickpea snacks, applesauce pouches, and almond butter onto the conveyor belt.

The icy silence between us was palpable, at least to me. Apparently, we fooled the checkout clerk. “So, the wine is for your wife, and the animal crackers are yours, right?” She grinned at Ben as he swiped his card. Normally, we would both chuckle at the joke, and Ben would offer a witty comeback. But it landed upon my heart like just another jab at the state of disrepair our marriage was in.

I offered a strained smile, but my insides were disintegrating from this emotional necrosis between Ben and me. We both knew that our marriage was not in a place where I could claim the wine and he the animal crackers on an ordinary Friday night while watching a movie. There was nothing lighthearted about the compounding stress that had eroded whatever levity had existed between us.

In the safety of our shared vehicle, I broke down and wept. Ben clutched the steering wheel and sustained his emotional armor. Then, I said, “What do we do now?” He muttered, “I don’t know.”

We passed a Meijer parking lot, and I glanced at the time. “We still have about twenty minutes until Fiona goes home. Why don’t we sit in the parking lot for a few minutes?” I suggested. Ben sighed but veered to the right and put the SUV in park. We sat facing west at a summer sunset of fire: hues of burnt orange and cherry red that mimicked the flames of indignation between us.

In what felt like a graced moment, I opened up about my chronic pain and fatigue related to my recent Hashimoto’s (autoimmune hypothyroidism) flare-up and that more and more is being squeezed from what little energy and time I have to begin with: more paperwork required by the school, more red tape from the health care system, more recommendations for therapies and treatments for Sarah. All of it a time tax.

Ben took my hand in his, both of us still facing the sun as it descended, signaling the onset of dusk. The gesture felt like a painkiller for the throbbing in my heart, and though I knew we were far, far from resolution, at least it was one small movement forward.

That’s the thing, though: forward is rarely, if ever, linear. Forward means you find your way to connection - with yourself or your partner - maybe in a single glance or touch of the hand. But then you are thrust against another impenetrable wall that drains your spirit and robs you of whatever fragments of time remain your own to claim.

Forward means you learn to fly with a tattered wing. Ben and I are slowly figuring this out in awkward, strange steps. You become bruised, torn, even hollowed out at times, yet you remember that your wings still carry you somehow. Even if you aren’t sure they will raise you up, you try, anyway. And sometimes, without knowing how or when or why, you ascend beyond the place where you alighted.

You adjust to the broken parts of yourself that take time to heal, if they ever do. And you carry on with your life and choose to love, in spite of the hurdles that only you face and only you truly understand. I think it is love that actually carries us when we have forgotten how to fly.