When I met her, she was busy and full of life.
When I met her, she was involved in many things – causes, crusades, committees, and a vibrant social group – and her side was an exciting place to be. In no time, my life went from sedentary and dull to fun and busy.
And it wasn’t long before it became clear that I wasn’t seeing the whole picture. There were her two kids, each with their challenges; two ex-husbands, even more challenging; cantankerous family members; and a staggering loss.
She was coping. She was soldiering on, being a mom, dealing with those who couldn’t be bothered to make her days a little easier, busying herself to create space for something more.
That was what I missed. The something more.
I thought I could be that something more. I wanted more; she wanted a boyfriend, and I wanted to be her true partner. She pushed back a little at that. She wanted a boyfriend.
I hung in there, and remained at her side, sharing in the fun and activity, road-tripping at times, helping when I could with the kids. Boyfriend.
She was coping. She was carrying an unimaginable pain, alongside a growing catalog of disappointments. She was scanning the edges of her world for that something more, a path beyond the one that tugged at her. She wanted more. She deserved more.
I came to love her more deeply than I could have imagined.
Many were the mornings I awoke beside her, and there came a day when there were no mornings that I didn’t. I was part of her home. More than her boyfriend. Her partner.
And for the next year, I saw it that way. I was part of her home. We were a family. And my job was to be the man: walk the dog, take out the garbage, empty the dishwasher, share in the cooking and the shopping. My idea of a home.
But she was coping. What she needed in a partner was far more than the dog and the garbage and the shopping. She needed someone who could offer another road – someone with whom she could work out the future together.
I had my at-bat. And I blew it. I was so focused on my own idea of how things should be that I looked right past what she really needed. She had offered me what I had wanted – true partnership – and I had missed it.
I took my place in her growing catalog of disappointments.
I have since dedicated myself to learning from that mistake. I learned to look more deeply, to listen more closely, and – most importantly – to set aside my own ideas about how things should be.
When a man loves a woman, he takes her hand and enters into a shared reality that’s about discovering the future together – planning to a certain extent, yes, but largely accepting what life serves up and working out over time, as a team, what “perfect” is between them. Not his idea of it.
There is a certain amount of leadership that’s expected – not in the control-and-decide-everything sense, but in the let’s-create-some-space-and-structure for regrouping and taking action, as life unfolds. Part of the burden of “coping” is having no help from anyone in the maze of day-to-day decisions and thankless tasks. That’s where a man can lead. Lighten her burden, yes, but opening up space for her at the same time. And bringing joy to that space, so that life no longer feels like coping.
I’ve begun to see that most women are a woman coping – because we live in an age when most men don’t show up.
The Grown-Ass Man shows up.
I’m showing up...
Opmerkingen