I spent 40 minutes last night writing an e-mail to my husband that consisted of all the funny things our toddler “cooked” in her play kitchen in a single afternoon.
There were lots of cute details about her pretending to sip a soup made of sugar and tuna fish while yelling, “Yummy!” There was a hilarious tidbit about her running over to my Nativity scene and grabbing the wise men, who she then sauteed with a felt banana.
I’m an old pro at this by now, writing to the man that doesn’t answer me, telling him lots of nothings about our daily lives that he’s missing while underwater. But even for me, this e-mail was over-the-top hilarious.
And that’s because it was hiding something.
A family member is getting divorced.
He would want to know. But I didn’t want to tell him.
My husband has said to me that, when he’s gone, because of the limited contact he does have, he feels like time stops. It’s only when he comes home that he realizes months have passed without him here.
And when he comes home this time, I’m worried it’s going to feel like years.
He’s missed divorces. Deaths. Milestones. Births. Marriages. Crises. Thankfully, his daughters and I are pretty steady. Nothing too shattering has happened to his nuclear family, other than the resident winter flu and a traffic ticket.
But everyone around us is changing and I find myself filled with so much to say in these e-mails late at night – and not all of it is good.
In a way, I’m the gatekeeper.
Does he need to know this? I wonder. Will it affect him? I ask myself.
And then there’s always the question I already know the answer to.
Can he do anything about it?
No.
Because it’s not that I don’t want to tell him that my aunt’s got cancer. It’s that he can’t so much as offer his condolences while he’s gone. And I know that eats at him.
It’s bothersome not to be there for the ones you love when they seem to need it most. And I don’t want to put that burden on him.
At the same time, I want to tell him what’s going on. It’s not like I’m surprising him by refurnishing the living room in a few months. If I don’t fess up, he steps off that boat and I have to tell him we no longer have certain family members.
It’s a bit of a tightrope.
Which is why, tonight, I will tell him about the divorce in the family.
Because at least he’ll know, whether he can do anything about it or not. I can type it out and talk about it, and he can get a glimpse of what’s going on back home, where people are still living their lives - the good and the bad parts.
In a way, it makes him feel more connected, and that’s good.
Plus, that means I don’t have to tell him about the speeding ticket I got this morning.
In a way, everybody wins.
Follow Brittany at http://www.brittsbeat.com/
