What Do You Mean “We?”
written April 9 but posted as soon as I had internet access
Let’s face it, today was tough. I feel like I was close to hitting the “wall.” No, I wasn’t in a marathon or in an ultra-running event, but this journey of mine is about endurance. Today the loneliness of so many miles without fellow walker closed in on me as the wind whipped and pestered me.
Poor Matt, he did his best to encourage me forward. When simple encouragement didn’t work, he got a little bossy. I remember hopping out of the car and thinking, “He’d be the sort of coach who’d get good performance from his athlete but be hated at the same time.” I wasn’t feeling kindly toward the man.
We weren’t communicating particularly well for one thing. I was feeling sorry for myself for another. After all, I was the one out in the wind. I was the one walking all the miles. It’s easy to say, “He’s just driving.” In fact, Matt’s doing a whole lot more than that.
Every day at camp he sets up, takes down, loads and unloads. He’s carefully charting my miles and keeping a log of where we stop and why. He watches for my safety, and for my nutrition. He even cooks for me and does the clean-up. I also know he worries.
Neither of us was looking forward to the northern half of the Jornada. We’d driven it and knew it would be desolate and challenging. We couldn’t have predicted the weather. These winds are common to March, not April. Oh we might have some in April, but not so brutal and so consistent. These last ones have blown now for nearly 36 hours. They are relentless.
Today, our exchanges were a little scrappy. It was mostly my fault. My mood was miserable. I felt pushed and defensive. I knew when I set up the daily mileages that there had to be some flexibility in them. My rationalization was, “They are suggestions.” Matt expressed the fear that if I fell behind now, I might not make Santa Fe in time. I understood the fear; it’s just that at the moment I didn’t care.
This led me to some thinking about maternity and labor. Matt was in the lose- lose position of any husband who mistakenly tells his wife while she’s having a contraction, “We’re doing good.” It’s not uncommon for the wife to snarl back, “What we?” She is feeling much as I did today that the suffering is all hers and he is only a spectator and somehow to blame.
Once I was able to relate my feelings to a reasonable analogy I shared them with Matt. He in turn chuckled and said, “Wow, I was thinking I like the Susan who planned this journey and I’ll like her when she tells about it after, but right now, hmm. Then I remembered that I felt this way before – when she was about to give birth.”
Now, I didn’t correct him as I felt he’d suffered enough already today, but I always thought I labored fairly well. I didn’t yell and fuss and scream, though I do remember getting a bit cranky a day or two before baby began entering this world. I just know that when our first was about to be born, it was all Matt could do to remember to feed me ice chips. When it came to helping me breathe, let’s just say the delivery nurse intervened.
The good thing is: we’ve been on this journey for seven days now. For the most part it’s been a great shared experience. Today we reached a place where I had enough miles and Matt said, “You’ve done more than a half marathon for the day, I’m satisfied.” I bit my tongue and thought about taking a shower, enjoying clean clothes and a clean bed. I was greatly relieved that my more-than-a-half-marathon got me slightly closer to my goal than was originally planned for today.
It was with much love and gratitude that I hollered from the tub, “Have a safe drive,” when he left for Socorro to do the laundry and get supplies we need for the next several days. Shared adventures are the best!
April 13th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
[…] gleich tot! Michael, könntest mir mal erklären wie ich Einfluß auf die GEZ haben soll? Die werden alleine durch Forderungen der ÖR und die problemlose Akzeptanz dummer […]