The First
It’s 1986ish. I’m a child and my older siblings have been picking on me. I have a point to make a point to prove, one that would validate me. I want to say it, but my mother is asking me “Is it better to be right or to be kind?” The fight goes out of me. Everything in my little life has ingrained in me that kindness matters above all. I never say my point. This guides me for the first 25 years of my life, a lesson in biting it all down.
It’s 1999. I graduate high school in a month or less. I’m sitting in the guidance counselor’s room and she’s looking at me while I sob uncontrollably and explain the the boy I was supposed to marry has broken up with me. The house, the cars, the kids, our idyllic life gone into the arms of another girl. She calls Rob to the office. Conflict resolution, my first real taste of it as a grown up. I knock the sobbing down to sniffs when he sits next to me feeling foreign. I don’t know him now. He says he never cared about me, I was just a game to win. I was boring, and the thrill of the chase had turned into blandness in his hands. I am devastated. He leaves. There is nothing I can say or do but be paralyzed while those words etch across my heart.
It’s early 2000 and there’s an engagement ring on my finger. I’ve made the mistake of taking it off while out with friends for snagging on my knitted blouse. We’re in his truck driving home in the night, and I don’t know what’s barreling down on me. Our first fight. I think we’re driving peacefully having had a nice night. Suddenly his Burger King cup is hitting the dashboard in front of me, spilling his drink all over my lap. In shock I gasp and lift my hands. He grabs my wrist hard enough to leave a bruise and half yanks me across the bench seat so he can keep his face inches from mine. The engine revs. He’s speeding now. “Do that again and I’ll leave you like Rob did.” I’m shaking, and I apologize profusely. I don’t even know what I’ve done but I’m desperate not to be left again. It was weeks before I understood what had set him off that night.
It’s 2005. I’m at a computer screen watching the guy I’m smitten with openly flirt with girls in our computer game. It hurts. I tell him, perhaps less than softly but I’m still afraid. “I’m not yours for you to worry about like that.” It’s true, we’re just friends. I have no ground to stand on. My voice abandons me and I cry myself to sleep for a week. There is no resolution here either.
It’s 2018. Words get minced in the meat grinder of texting. My own fears play out in words, the voice that’s so fucking unreliable decides she wants to play today. As a child I chose not to speak, even when I was right, because I didn’t want to be unkind. It caused me to watch people closely. After the disaster of my first relationships it became a weapon. Ruthlessly decontstructing people. “For safety” I tell myself. “Identify problems before they become scars. See them as they really are.” But the information doesn’t just go away once it’s deemed safe enough.
In my knee-jerk reaction of feeling like I was in a precarious spot, I spoke. I named things, called out things that aren’t mine to call out. They were cruelly accurate, and it wasn’t ok. And then when that alone wasn’t enough, I topped it off by being angry about a situation that hadn’t happened quite the way my head was convinced. Where did my kindness go? Out the door with my logic when he was making statements and asking questions that at best confused me. That’s the nice way of putting it. The less kind way was that my defensive parts rose up like the hounds of hell.
I have wounded someone I love. I have been unkind. The guilt, the anger, the feelings all whirl in my head close on the heels of yesterdays storm. It’s barely settled and now it’s stirred again into the hurricane. I throw things into a bag. Unpacking it today is half amusing. Why did I grab ink pens? Why a candle? Did I think I was going to haul off in the woods a la Bear Grylls? It must have made sense to me at the time.
I text Matt only enough to tell him I need space. Escape. There’s been too much and I’m not strong enough. I’m driving before I even know where I’m going. “Just get road under you, you can sort it out later.” I have couches everywhere I can crash. Anywhere. My mind picks South. He texts me saying he’s going to come find me. Should I let him waste his work day, his fuel, and his energy going where I am not? No. Even now I can’t do that.
But I am not kind. I am still unable to find my kindness.
His house is empty when I roll up. Shower, nap, water. I start to feel human again. It’s quiet and alien here. My mind can’t whirl if I’m not comfortable. It’s too busy assessing everything. I’m asleep on the couch when my phone alerts wake me. He’s texting me again. He’s not in the same head space. Neither am I. The storm can rage, but it doesn’t live long.
Finally my kindness has returned.
I am an asshole, and he’s trying to apologize. Do I go over there? Do I find out exactly what he means by conflict resolution? Do I have that courage?
I leave the empty house, and text him a list of stupid things to do. Count to 100, now backwards. If he does those, he can’t be angry enough to hurt me. He can’t be ready to leave scars if he’s confused or amused. I tell him to go outside and then I pull up. What am I walking in to? The list of everything that could go wrong is already running like those scrolls on the bottom of a newscast. One flows right into the next.
He’s coming to my door, and I’m trying to be brave. Can he hear the hitch in my exhale? I look up. He’s genuinely surprised. Genuinely not angry. I tumble out and into a hug. “Oh..”
My legs barely want to work. I can’t hug him tightly enough but my arms aren’t responding. But he’s not hard with me. He’s not angry. He shakes his head in disbelief, but that’s it. We go inside and he mentions my parking job. I want to say “Be happy I remember how to use my brakes with those kind of nerves going.” Instead I tell him he’s too cocky and laugh.
It feels better to laugh.
We’re in his kitchen and I’m trying to get my feet back under me. He’s offering water. Food. I’m a little hungry now, so he heats up Mac and cheese and I have a seat. I didn’t mean to go over it, but we’re going to resolve this now. I teach him the hand signal for time out. The only thing I can do when my mind locks up. I’m expecting this to be like Matt. Matt is exacting, he needs precise recall and clear words and extremely logical reactions. It’s taken us years to combine two styles of communication, logical and emotional. We still fuck it up regularly.
What will happen? Will this temporary happiness in my being here fade into hard words? Will he expect me to grovel? Better to just find out now.
But his tone is calm. It stays that way the whole time. We revisit triggers, words. He makes fun of me for being Dr Phil. I apologize for unsolicited advice. For dissecting him viscerally. And then just for being a bitch at the end about a perceived slight. He’s not cruel or hard, he doesn’t throw his drink at me or tell me he never cared. We laugh at different parts. “Oh god, I’m so sorry, that was the sword edge of my fear laying into you. Did I really say that?”
That was it. What I consider my first adult First Fight. Matt and I have had adult fights, but our first was between two friends light years from who we would become.
Maybe, just maybe, this is something I can do.
It’s 1999. I graduate high school in a month or less. I’m sitting in the guidance counselor’s room and she’s looking at me while I sob uncontrollably and explain the the boy I was supposed to marry has broken up with me. The house, the cars, the kids, our idyllic life gone into the arms of another girl. She calls Rob to the office. Conflict resolution, my first real taste of it as a grown up. I knock the sobbing down to sniffs when he sits next to me feeling foreign. I don’t know him now. He says he never cared about me, I was just a game to win. I was boring, and the thrill of the chase had turned into blandness in his hands. I am devastated. He leaves. There is nothing I can say or do but be paralyzed while those words etch across my heart.
It’s early 2000 and there’s an engagement ring on my finger. I’ve made the mistake of taking it off while out with friends for snagging on my knitted blouse. We’re in his truck driving home in the night, and I don’t know what’s barreling down on me. Our first fight. I think we’re driving peacefully having had a nice night. Suddenly his Burger King cup is hitting the dashboard in front of me, spilling his drink all over my lap. In shock I gasp and lift my hands. He grabs my wrist hard enough to leave a bruise and half yanks me across the bench seat so he can keep his face inches from mine. The engine revs. He’s speeding now. “Do that again and I’ll leave you like Rob did.” I’m shaking, and I apologize profusely. I don’t even know what I’ve done but I’m desperate not to be left again. It was weeks before I understood what had set him off that night.
It’s 2005. I’m at a computer screen watching the guy I’m smitten with openly flirt with girls in our computer game. It hurts. I tell him, perhaps less than softly but I’m still afraid. “I’m not yours for you to worry about like that.” It’s true, we’re just friends. I have no ground to stand on. My voice abandons me and I cry myself to sleep for a week. There is no resolution here either.
It’s 2018. Words get minced in the meat grinder of texting. My own fears play out in words, the voice that’s so fucking unreliable decides she wants to play today. As a child I chose not to speak, even when I was right, because I didn’t want to be unkind. It caused me to watch people closely. After the disaster of my first relationships it became a weapon. Ruthlessly decontstructing people. “For safety” I tell myself. “Identify problems before they become scars. See them as they really are.” But the information doesn’t just go away once it’s deemed safe enough.
In my knee-jerk reaction of feeling like I was in a precarious spot, I spoke. I named things, called out things that aren’t mine to call out. They were cruelly accurate, and it wasn’t ok. And then when that alone wasn’t enough, I topped it off by being angry about a situation that hadn’t happened quite the way my head was convinced. Where did my kindness go? Out the door with my logic when he was making statements and asking questions that at best confused me. That’s the nice way of putting it. The less kind way was that my defensive parts rose up like the hounds of hell.
I have wounded someone I love. I have been unkind. The guilt, the anger, the feelings all whirl in my head close on the heels of yesterdays storm. It’s barely settled and now it’s stirred again into the hurricane. I throw things into a bag. Unpacking it today is half amusing. Why did I grab ink pens? Why a candle? Did I think I was going to haul off in the woods a la Bear Grylls? It must have made sense to me at the time.
I text Matt only enough to tell him I need space. Escape. There’s been too much and I’m not strong enough. I’m driving before I even know where I’m going. “Just get road under you, you can sort it out later.” I have couches everywhere I can crash. Anywhere. My mind picks South. He texts me saying he’s going to come find me. Should I let him waste his work day, his fuel, and his energy going where I am not? No. Even now I can’t do that.
But I am not kind. I am still unable to find my kindness.
His house is empty when I roll up. Shower, nap, water. I start to feel human again. It’s quiet and alien here. My mind can’t whirl if I’m not comfortable. It’s too busy assessing everything. I’m asleep on the couch when my phone alerts wake me. He’s texting me again. He’s not in the same head space. Neither am I. The storm can rage, but it doesn’t live long.
Finally my kindness has returned.
I am an asshole, and he’s trying to apologize. Do I go over there? Do I find out exactly what he means by conflict resolution? Do I have that courage?
I leave the empty house, and text him a list of stupid things to do. Count to 100, now backwards. If he does those, he can’t be angry enough to hurt me. He can’t be ready to leave scars if he’s confused or amused. I tell him to go outside and then I pull up. What am I walking in to? The list of everything that could go wrong is already running like those scrolls on the bottom of a newscast. One flows right into the next.
He’s coming to my door, and I’m trying to be brave. Can he hear the hitch in my exhale? I look up. He’s genuinely surprised. Genuinely not angry. I tumble out and into a hug. “Oh..”
My legs barely want to work. I can’t hug him tightly enough but my arms aren’t responding. But he’s not hard with me. He’s not angry. He shakes his head in disbelief, but that’s it. We go inside and he mentions my parking job. I want to say “Be happy I remember how to use my brakes with those kind of nerves going.” Instead I tell him he’s too cocky and laugh.
It feels better to laugh.
We’re in his kitchen and I’m trying to get my feet back under me. He’s offering water. Food. I’m a little hungry now, so he heats up Mac and cheese and I have a seat. I didn’t mean to go over it, but we’re going to resolve this now. I teach him the hand signal for time out. The only thing I can do when my mind locks up. I’m expecting this to be like Matt. Matt is exacting, he needs precise recall and clear words and extremely logical reactions. It’s taken us years to combine two styles of communication, logical and emotional. We still fuck it up regularly.
What will happen? Will this temporary happiness in my being here fade into hard words? Will he expect me to grovel? Better to just find out now.
But his tone is calm. It stays that way the whole time. We revisit triggers, words. He makes fun of me for being Dr Phil. I apologize for unsolicited advice. For dissecting him viscerally. And then just for being a bitch at the end about a perceived slight. He’s not cruel or hard, he doesn’t throw his drink at me or tell me he never cared. We laugh at different parts. “Oh god, I’m so sorry, that was the sword edge of my fear laying into you. Did I really say that?”
That was it. What I consider my first adult First Fight. Matt and I have had adult fights, but our first was between two friends light years from who we would become.
Maybe, just maybe, this is something I can do.
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