I first heard Olivia stirring at 7:20 this morning, though she was not fussy. It took me about ten minutes to muster the energy to rouse myself, but by the time I got up, I was armed with a set itinerary and plan of action for getting the kids off to school. Blessedly, everything went pretty much according to plan and outside of hitting the trash cans that I had just put on the curb and having to pile the trash back in the bins, things went smoothly. I was disturbed to note then that it took me slightly over an hour and a half to get myself and the kids dressed, breakfasted (kids only), beds and lunches made, and out the door. If that was us on a good day, I am going to be in trouble when it comes time to have them in school well before 9:00am, which is when we rolled into daycare this morning.
I went home, got my breakfast made and was settling down to work when Barney called. He was trying to trick me into thinking that he was still at his brother's house (a favorite ruse—easily detected), but I heard his Achilles’ heel talking to him in the background. By Achilles’ heel, I mean his GPS, which he relies on to excess, much to the amusement and exasperation of his father-in-law. Barney knows perfectly well how to get home from his brother's house, but he feels comforted by the GPS, and there is really no harm done, so I try not to complain.
He called again about 45 minutes from home, and I decided upon hanging up with him that it would be a perfect time to break for a quick nap. It would be long enough to refresh me, and his coming home would be sure to wake me up and prevent me from an unintended two hour nap that would both mess with my ability to finish my work for today and my sleep pattern for tonight. I finished up what I was working on and was sound asleep less than 15 minutes later.
When I woke up, I was completely disoriented. My first thought was that I had somehow overslept and forgotten the children who would frantically need me by this point. Then I realized I was on the couch and the house was silent, so I knew I had taken a nap and all was well. I immediately became concerned again though because whatever had awakened me that was not Barney returning home, making me think I had slept two hours after all. My computer chose that time to freeze on my screensaver, so I couldn't check the time and wasn't awake enough yet to think to look at the wall clock on our mantel.
It was right at this moment that I had this brief instant of clarity of thought about what it would be to experience life without Barney--if two hours had passed, and he was not home, then something terrible had happened. It was a moment of knowing that I could survive as a mother and person without him but that I wouldn't want to and wouldn't ever quite know the same joy again.
People who know me well, including Barney himself, know that this moment is not the first time I have had such fears or such revelations. It is in my nature to worry, panic, and to imagine worst case scenarios. The five months that Barney spent travelling for his job out into remote parts of the Texas country were some of the hardest of my life because I was constantly fighting down the fear of losing him. Cell phones are both my biggest blessing and my biggest bane because when I call and he answers, it is the end to major panic, but if I call and he doesn't answer, my worry only compounds upon itself.
Luckily, I didn't even have to try to call him this time. It turns out that I had only been asleep for half an hour and what woke me up was actually Barney arriving home; he was taking care of a few things outside before coming in to rouse me. What I took from the moment this time that is perhaps unique from the other panicky moments in the past was the comfort in knowing that if I did lose him right now, it would be at a time when I know that he knows how much I love him and when I know that he is as happy and secure in our marriage as I am. It is also not lost on me this comfort was not something I have really ever even glancingly considered in my past experiences. I have too often forgotten to outwardly love Barney, instead relying on him to intuit my feelings simply because he is my soul mate. And, I have too often considered our relationship only from the vantage point of my own perspective, forgetting that things that happen in our relationship happen to us both and that my experience is not always his experience and that my job as his wife is to try to validate, understand, and improve on his experiences. Today felt like proof of a little bit of progress in that arena.
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