Looking like crap
I remember being very uptight waiting for Ed to arrive at my condo that Saturday morning. For sure, I had no idea how he would react to what I was going to share. I kept rehearsing things in my head for different ways to tell my story. But in the end, there was only one way — just put it out there…and hope he wouldn’t leave.
If that wasn’t bad enough, there was how I looked. I had spent the previous day at the shore and had a bad sunburn. Not just on my skin, but my lips. So on this, the very day I wanted to look my best as I delivered the hardest news, instead, I now had fever blisters all over my lips.
I just remember looking in the mirror and thinking, Oh great! The hardest conversation of my life, and I look like crap. So on top of what I have to tell him, now he’ll also think I’m diseased and ugly! How can this possibly go well?
When he got there, I immediately explained what had happened and how frustrated I felt. That whole “we finally get together after months, and I look like crap.”
True to that good heart of his, he laughed and acknowledged the irony of it all. He wasn’t disturbed by my poor sunburned lips. In fact, I remember him saying that it was good to be back at my condo.
So about your request that morning…
A lot of that day is almost a blank in my memory. Nervous tension, I guess. I have a vague recollection of sitting across the table from him. And of reminding him of his request on our second date: “So tell me about you! I want to know who you are.”
At that point, I remember taking a deep breath, and then I just “jumped off the dock into the deep water, hoping for the best.” I laid out for him why I had been unwilling to answer him, or to let him close. And I told him all I could think of about the abuse up to that point.
He sat there quietly and listened. I give him credit because he didn’t bolt. He heard me out. I think we went out for supper or something. Again, I think I was so drained from the stress of it all, I cannot remember.
Ed did tell me more recently that it did take him a bit to process what I shared. It was not a given that he would stay. But, in the end, he came back. Again. And again… for which I am eternally grateful.
Could a “normal life” yet be possible?
Soul Mosaic 
Leave a comment