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Subtextby
Elizabeth Bussey Sowdal | |
If
you have siblings you might remember fussing with them once in a while, tattling
on some misdeed, holding a hurt in your heart rather longer than you should have
before making up again. Perhaps there was even the occasional pinch or slap. Perhaps
you did as I did when I was a child and sometimes hated my sister. I would wait
until she went to sleep and then I would very, very gently rub the mosquito bites
she spent all day bravely ignoring. You know, to activate the venom. To make them
itch. I was awful, I won't lie.
Perhaps you have lived with a roommate
who you eventually grew to despise. You began to notice that your apartment had
a funny smell. By funny I mean a smell that was not your smell and which started
out as being just a little thing you noticed and ended up being a reason to move
out. There might have been little things your roommate did which bothered you;
things like keeping the peanut butter in the refrigerator, or dropping the handful
of hair she pulled from her hairbrush near the wastepaper basket, but not in the
wastepaper basket. When you live in close proximity to another person, an imperfect
person, a person who is not you, there is bound to be sooner or later friction.
This
holds true for marriages too. Even the most loving and civilized of marriages
have some days which are better than other days. No two people can live together
without these days and you can only hope that they are few and far between. I
have been married twice. The first time doesn't even bear thinking about, let
alone telling you about. This second time has been so much better. We have certainly
had our little spells, our funny little tiffs, the odd moment when we might have,
oh, you know, set each other on fire as soon as looked at each other. But over
the years those times have become increasingly rare. We very seldom argue.
That is not to say that we are saints. Oh no! You cannot be married to a girl
who used to feign sleep for hours in order to rub somebody else's mosquito bites
and never get irritated. We have, however, evolved a different way of expressing
our irritation. When we are stressed out by circumstances, tired, down-trodden
and cranky we do not throw dishes or scream, "I hate you, ya big poo- head." We
are adults. We are middle aged adults. We are above that type of behavior and
even if we were not, we do not have the energy for it anymore. Instead we have
subtexts.
I come home tired and he comes home tired. There is nothing thawed
to cook for dinner. The kids are not home, so there is no outlet for our ire.
We have only each other. We might have a conversation which, if it were being
monitored and transcribed, would seem benign. But I know him and he knows me.
We know what we are talking about.
"What would you like for dinner, dear
(because I know that you're not going to be happy with a sandwich, not you, not
ever!)?"
"I don't know, honey. What do you feel like (because I know you
expect me to just walk through the door after working ten hours and pull something
out of my hat)?"
"Well, let's just see what is in the fridge (besides
cat food, though why not eat cat food, it's got to be better than what you fixed
last night)."
"Okay, but I'm not sure there's much there (since I seem
to be the only one of us who ever remembers that there are more tiers to the food
pyramid than Snickers.)"
"Maybe I'll just have some toast and tea (and
maybe then we can stop this horrible conversation because all I want to do is
turn on the tube and be quiet!)"
"Sounds good to me (maybe the tea will
keep your mouth busy for a while and I can just turn on the tube and be quiet!).
Would you like some cream in your tea (or maybe just a couple of scoops of double
fudge nut ripple, eh?)?"
"Yes, I'd like some cream please (because, if
you're implying that I am fat, let me go get the bathroom scale and we can have
a nice friendly little weigh in)."
"Weebles wobble but they don't fall
down (did I say that out loud?) ."
"What was that, dear?" |
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