5. Scales
Biblically, people often talk about the scales falling from their eyes as a good thing, as it brings the truth into light, and with it, the hope for salvation. But it's also true that those who cannot see, do not know what they're missing in their deception. The truth is sweeter, but it's also a lot harder to chew. Before someone hurts you, you can convince yourself that they are anything. That you are happy, and the leftovers are just growing pains.
Today
I’m filled with strange feelings. Though we aren't living together, I'm talking to Smoo again, and my feelings about this are all over the place. After that meeting, I came away with a tiny resolve to try. I don't know what hope latched onto to get me there, it truly felt like there was nothing left - could it be God, or is that another one of the lies I'm telling myself? His parents were there for the meeting, with him, and my older sister was on the call, everything was hella awkward. I couldn't look at him. I wanted to scream, but if there are few spaces you can experience and show what’s really going on inside you, there's next to none in the presence of African in-laws, no matter how lovely they are. So, I stayed quiet and felt nothing. I think he might have been doing the same.
As we worked through agenda items, I only perked up at a few; Why did you cheat? Who was she? Do you have 'a problem'? and of course, "You must be careful not to do it again-we all know about prowling kleptomanic lions." Stay alert!
The meeting ended without giving me much reassurance, only that spark of determination. Once they had all left, and I was alone, a deep sadness set in as I relived the internal and external gestures (however small) I had made toward fixing our marriage. I considered whether I lacked the courage to make a different choice. Or maybe a comfort was given all the long faces and fight rhetoric that was coming at me from all sides, if we ended up back in this situation, there would be no shortage of people I could blame. I could say "I TOLD YOU SO" with ten toes down. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I am too old and too experienced to let myself off the hook that easily. Perhaps I was just too tired to fight anymore after such a tough week, and because I wasn't going to end it in that very moment, I had to commit to staying. 1/0. The confusion, anxiety, and self-betrayal barged through me like bounty hunters as I sat there alone that first night, and they have hovered since. Before carrying me off, they have also been busy peeling the scaly film I let weave itself over my eyes. Stripping away any illusions, leaving no luxury of deception over who he really is, who I was, and what we have to try and make something new. It doesn’t feel like much at the moment.
For me, this also means I must become a woman I never deserved to be. A 'mife.' Mother-wife. You can recoil. It sounds disgusting because it is. 'Mother' in the sense of constantly checking to ensure the shoe I put back on him that meeting doesn't drop again. For my sake. For dignity. For hope. For God. For love? Shedding my perfect cloak of femininity, because the task of monitoring phones and cutting off 'friends' isn't soft work. I'm searching God for another way though, a better way, and if it was revealed to me, I’d take it without hesitation. A THOUSAND TIMES I'd take it. A way where my love for Smoo, hope, and my tender parts don't have to hide, and possibly die. For such a path, I think my resolve would not falter; I would not look back. Unlike Mrs. Lot, I'd pick up my skirts, turn from our past, and leave it no room to turn me to stone.
