Snow Day, Delayed

Linsey got mad when I told her. I think I need to be home tomorrow. I promise we'll find another day to go to the snow. I could have just kept my mouth shut – been a good dad, a good husband. We were driving home from the office Christmas party, where I'd been a good employee and a good pastor, so why quit now?

On the other hand, a couple of days ago I was melting into the couch, summoning just enough energy to operate the mouse so I could play Chuzzle on PopCap.com. (Don't worry, I'm not getting any endor$ement kickback.) Pretty much being a sloth, you know? And Linsey's buzzing around the house, doing laundry and bills and dishes, and she says, “I'm glad you're listening to your body.” Which means “I'm glad you're relaxing.” And she was serious! At least I think she was...sometimes our conversations sound like that episode of The Simpsons:

Disaffected youth #1: Here comes that cannonball guy. He's cool.
Disaffected youth #2: Are you being sarcastic, dude?
Disaffected youth #1: I don't even know anymore.

Hyper-irony rules!

We did find another day to go to the snow. It's become a tradition: We drive to the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway and ride it up the mountain for a few hours of snow and breathtaking nighttime views of the surrounding desert. No mountain driving, no snow chains, and a chocolate shake from Bakers Drive-Thru on the way home. (Again, no endorsement kickback, just an attempt at local color.) Every year I tell James not to worry because they've fixed the cables and none of the aerial trams have fallen out of the sky for at least a month. He always says, “You're lying, dad. You're just making that up.” But I know that somewhere deep inside, I've made him just a teeny, tiny bit nervous, and this is the fun of being a dad, right?

So I followed through on my promise to reschedule the family snow day, which makes me feel even better about “listening to my body” the first time around, and insisting on down time. I relapsed during Christmas of 2008, because I did the good pastor/dad/husband thing until I was dead inside, resentful of everyone and everything. I'm committed to taking care of myself during these times that I tend to blow it – namely Christmas, Easter and vacation. After the snow thing Linsey just asked me to try and tell her earlier next time, so she wouldn't feel so disappointed. I'll try. But sometimes you don't know you're wiped out until you're in the middle of things.

Which is, I guess, what happened here on my blog. I just needed a break, and I took it. A heart-felt thank you to all of you who checked in on me and made sure I was okay. I am, I think. I'm sober, doing things one day at a time, trying my best to balance crazy-Christmas-program-times with chuzzle-on-the-couch times. And I'm grateful for both.

This post is also at TheSecondRoad.org

Charlie Brown's Football

Who's the fool, Charlie Brown or Lucy?

My therapist Heidi wants me to stop kicking myself when Lucy pulls the football away. She says we're making progress. That each of us is working through our “stuff” and that I should go ahead and let myself get aroused. That I should jump in, sink or swim, then journal about what happens.

But how many times do you feel sorry for Charlie Brown before you think, why did he believe her again? Why did he run for that football again, only to fall on his ass when Lucy pulled it away?

You codies have to help me here. I hate being on this end of the equation. I'm more comfortable writing about the times when it's me screwing up. Linsey and I like this arrangement. I'm the sick one. I'm introspective and self-critical. I'm good at apologizing.

Linsey's not good at apologizing. She only has two modes: 1) “It's your fault Eli,” and 2) “I don't feel like talking about it.” Our therapist helps with this, if she can shut me up for long enough.

So things seem okay, even good, and I love my Linsey, and I look at her curves and feel her softness and fall in love with her raspy voice. And I tell her I adore her, and help out with the house, and take Ashley to buy boots and to her horseback riding lesson. And it's noisy and busy and there's a bunch of little boys swimming in my pool for the J-man's seventh birthday party, but it's alright. Because we love each other, and we'll have our time tonight.

We'll have our time tonight. I keep checking. Carefully rationing my excitement. Making sure the lane next to me is clear so I can make a quick escape if things slow down too fast. And my neural computer starts to believe it's solved the equation, that I've finally cataloged all the warning signs.

Those warning signs aren't here this time. None of them. She's happy and reciprocally tender. We talk and narrate. We're therapy veterans who know that you have to say what you're feeling, and kill your paranoia with supportive verbal cues.

So Charlie Brown is thinking it's a good day to kick that football. He straightens up the bedroom and turns down the bed. He brushes his teeth and sets the alarm. But when he locks the door, Lucy becomes quiet and withdrawn because she remembers an argument from earlier in the day. She pulls up the ball. And it's too late, because Charlie Brown's already running.

It wasn't some misunderstanding, or some crazy over-reactive trigger, like last time. It was: I know I said things were good and I wanted you, but now I don't, so leave me alone.

So I don't know what to say. I really like this person. I care about her and we have a million things in common, plus there's these kids, and I'm not going to flake on them. And I made vows when we got married. So I'm not going to leave, or cheat, or get high, or stop breathing.

It feels like the only option is to play those tapes in my head again, the ones that tell me: It's gonna be okay - we can be friends but not lovers. I don't get everything I want. Some people have incurable diseases or crushing poverty, I will have a sexless marriage. I will find a way to live with that.

Years of cognitive therapy tells me I'm engaging in “black and white thinking.” At least I've learned to recognize that. And I've learned in recovery that I don't have to do anything stupid. So God, I'm powerless and my life is unmanageable, and I can't fix this.

Magic Trees

On my porch there are two potted trees (not just one!), waiting to be planted. But don't tell anybody.

Our Palm Sunday musical featured Tree #1, which represented the branches placed at the feet of Christ a week before Easter. But really I just wanted to grab people's attention with a giant tree in the middle of the sanctuary.

Tree #2 was a sneaky replacement prop for Good Friday. We bought this tree larger, and trimmed it to match the first tree's shape. Then we cut off every single leaf. It stood stark and bare for our Friday evening service, a symbol of death and the cross.

Tree #1, bushy and green, returned for Easter morning, newly filled with blooms to symbolize the resurrection.

This illusion involved me carrying trees back and forth to a hiding place in the back yard of an associate who lives next door to the church. Yes, I carried my tree-cross over my shoulder just hours before we commemorated the crucifixion. It was painful, thought-provoking, and I'm sorry, but darkly comical.

There's your back story, so let me get to the point. After Easter, this wiped-out music director went on a week's vacation and forgot all about the Easter Tree. It sat unwatered for days in a dark sanctuary until I rescued it, along with the “dead” tree hidden next door to the church. They're now on my porch. Tonight they gave me a handle on the mess that's in my head.

You see, the Easter Tree looks awful. It was cared for and made beautiful for one special day, then discarded and forgotten as a stage prop. And that's what I do – like a magician – I show you something evocative and poignant, and make you cry while I sing you an Easter song. Meanwhile the ugliness of my Good Friday tree is hiding somewhere behind a fence, because it's messy and unsightly and I'm ashamed that I can't really make it come back to life. But I'm an artist and a shaman, and that's what you pay me to do, isn't it?

So I find myself tonight recognizing a shade of a Madonna-Whore complex in my feelings towards Linsey. (Maybe the limited intimacy in our relationship wasn't just her idea after all.) I present her with a carefully edited version of my needs, a simple and wholesome package of easily palatable human desires. Then I take whatever's left, and hide it in the darker, grimier corners of my life, where no one will see these more shameful needs spilling over, soiling my dignity.

But in sobriety I've learned this doesn't work. I can't meet my needs (for affection, intimacy, play) with images and intrigue. Nor can I destroy them through anger and will. Either path leads, inevitably, to relapse. Instead, I have to look at my needs, which for some reason involves self-loathing and disgust, and what's worse, I have to show them to Linsey. And until this last year, the process generally ended there, with me cursing my vulnerability. But things have changed. Significantly. When I expose my needs to Linsey, when I allow myself to adore and be adored, I find I'm no longer alone.

This mutuality in our love has been unfamiliar, satisfying, even occasionally transcendent. But I can never say, “Good job, Eli – You chose to connect rather than isolate.” Instead, I usually spend the morning after feeling sick that I exposed my needs and desires rather than shrouding them in composure and reserve.

And here's where the tree comes in. Not the Easter Tree that withered from neglect, but the Good Friday tree. The one we we almost killed by stripping its branches of all color and dignity. Though painful, the exposure left it pruned for growth, and vibrant green buds now fill every twig and branch.