~Mid-August, Some Time Around 4 Years Ago~
My fingers tapped on the steering wheel of my poor, banged up little car. As I pulled into the parking lot of the small, state-run college, I studied my hands. Small, relatively pale, covered in tiny, barely visible scars from a dog...bites the summer before. Thick blue veins that stood out against the skin of my hands. Average length fingers with short, bitten fingernails. I flipped them over, considering their movement. My very first ASL class was due to start in thirty minutes, and the idea of being able to talk with my hands was strangely exhilarating. On a whim, I picked up my phone.
It had been a couple months since I'd spoken with Steven--a boy I'd gone to high school with. I mean, I'd gotten a text from him a few weeks before: a mass text of a car wreck, which I'd quickly skimmed over, too busy to pay it much attention. But, hey--I'd heard through the grape-vine he'd moved back from Nashville and was attending the same college, and, let's face it--who wants to start a new class all by themselves?
"Hey," I said when he answered the phone. "What are you doing? Like, right now, right this minute?"
"Uhm, getting ready to go into my Chemistry class...why?" That was always a plus with him. The guy was never flustered; didn't matter if I called him at four am lost, or if I wanted to find a Chik-fila, he was almost always down.
"School just started," I said, ignoring the slight snort of 'obviously' I thought I heard across the line. "So it won't count against you if you withdraw right now." A beat of silence. Huh. Who knew? He could be caught off guard.
"And why would I do that?"
"So you can come take ASL with me, obviously," I shot back.
"Grace...I sent you a text of my car...I was in a wreck, I broke two of my fingers last week."
"So? Take the splint off, you'll be fine. Come on, you know you want to! Please??" Another heartbeat.
"When does class start?" I glanced down at the car clock.
"26 minutes and counting. I'll wait for you at the entrance...you're at the other campus?"
"Yeah...that doesn't give me a lot of time."
"You're speedy," I said and snapped the phone shut. Yes, I still had one of those hard-core, heavy duty Sprint flip-phones. Don't poke fun. I break things..
Fast-forward. Move past the many hours spent trying to have conversations in sign with limited vocab. Sidle on beyond us, sitting on big, fake lily pads in the children's book section at the library, going through the kid's books, struggling to interpret them. The play we performed for the local school for the deaf--Beauty and the Beast, with Steven starring as the Beast, and I in the role of Belle. Push on past us becoming a couple, and through the first year of signed "whispers" and jokes. To one comment that so illustrates the power of words:
"Why don't we sign together much anymore?" I asked, looking into slightly distracted brown eyes.
"I dunno," he shrugged. "I just don't really like the way you sign. Like Fred said--it's like watching a flash-bulb. Blink and you miss it. It's too spastic."
That was the last comfortable signed conversation I've had with the man that became my husband. Now, I fall back on sign in times of distress; it's easier for me. Feels more like home than English ever will. There's a comfort in the silence, the openness of expression, the feel of your fingers wrapping around each word-picture. Think how it feels to hold a pen, to watch your thoughts pour out in ink on paper; then, times it by ten at least. That's comfort, there.
We sign, still. I sign more than he does, though less around him than anyone else. But, once a year, we sign something together. Last year, we did "The Three Kings and I(What Really Happened)" by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. This year, "What is Christmas?" by the same people, and probably "Mary, Did You Know?", though we want to be careful with that; too many don't use true ASL, and I hate the loss. It's easy to go literal with that song. I want the meaning, the interpretation--all the feelings and emotions in that story. Really, it's quite powerful, and I'm pretty excited about it.
And, yet--as we sat down today, intending to work on it, I kept noticing him looking down at his phone. I leaned over to look, and he willingly showed me--a video game. For some reason, I'm extraordinarily hurt. Not that I'm not guilty of the same. How many times have we been hanging out, and I'm in my own little Candy Crush world? I love technology in so many ways--I can order any movie, right from my couch. Turn up the volume on Pandora from my kitchen. My house stays warm when it's cold, and cold when it's hot. I have friends in you all, from around the world. But, sometimes, I hate it; I hate that lack of being truly present with another human being.
I hate that we are not interested enough in each other, in our lives and conversations and interests and quirks, to not need Candy Crush or some other game to keep us entertained during a little time together. Not that we're miserable, or in some deep rut, or some horrible, dark place in our marriage. Certainly, you know that Steven and I--we've walked Hell and Back together. Pain like I've never known before or since, joy and love that I can't imagine topping. And, I love him. He's wonderful.
In the words of one of my favorite preacher's, "Your spouse becomes your standard for everything. They are your ideal. You chose them. God made them for you, just right for you. Not that you won't know pain with them. Just that they are the best for you--for your discipline, for your love, for your perseverance." And he is. My ideal.
I want a marriage that thrives. I want to spite the pain we've experienced together through a love that is blinding. But, like I told him tonight--if that's the case, there's some definite changes that need making. We're making it a mutual rule that phones stay up when we're together. I'm making it a personal goal to be utterly captivated by my husband. He's my world--I want to know it better. I want to be 100 years old, laying in bed together, and not have to ask what he's thinking or feeling, because I'll know him that well. When he reaches out and touches my hand, I want to hear his thoughts.
But, that takes two. It takes me letting go of words that hurt, and being willing to be more vulnerable than I already am. It takes him being willing to try with me. For us to honestly, desperately pursue one another's hearts.
I don't even know where to end tonight. But, I know I want to end with the sureness of love. So. There it is.
???