In The Long Run

Who Cares

After a certain age don’t you think as a couple you should no longer fight? Or is that just something all couples do no matter their age? It seems dumb and redundant. Both sides get mad. Nothing gets settled and the house is silent. Even the dogs know something is amiss.

This doesn’t happen often at our house but once in a blue moon it does. My walls go up faster than you can say please. There is no talking to me. Gary may as well be quiet. After a certain point I’m done talking. Don’t look at me, don’t say anything to me. Give me a minute or a day. 

The walls I have around my heart have been a lifetime in the making. They don’t come down easily. Or at all. I think they are always there. Just once in a while I’ll let people in. 

Get in a fight with me though and you won’t be able to break through. I’ll shut down. I can be quiet forever. It doesn’t bother me. Leave me alone. Let me be. Words come out of peoples mouths that they can’t ever take back. Oftentimes I think when people fight the truth slips out. What they really think. Once it’s out in the open it sits there like an elephant in the room. A dark cloud, a boil that won’t pop but hurts like hell. I’m sorry it doesn't work sometimes. Too little, too late. 

Two people have words. He said, she said. In the end nothing gets resolved. It’s all so catastrophic at the time but after the fact it’s all just so dumb. Hurtful words tossed back and forth solve nothing. But do generate hurt feelings. 

I can turn off my emotions and sit. I’m like a snapping turtle that has a hold of a stick. There is nothing you can do to pry that stick out of his mouth. That’s me. There is absolutely nothing Gary can say in the moment that will help. The lid is down, nothing he can do to open it up. It takes time. Time is something that’s never guaranteed so why waste this time we have arguing? It seems so senseless and stupid. 

Does what we were arguing about seem important at the time. Most certainly. It’s only when you look back you can see the foolishness of it. The wasted day, moments lost never to be regained. Time spent sulking when we should be laughing. We are in our sixties after all. How much time do we have left? If you ask me I’ll say I’ll die first. Just because of the madness of dementia that hangs over my head. Gary thinks because I run and eat healthy I’ll live forever. Not so much. He, on the other hand, always has something going on with his body. So in essence he thinks he’s on his way out. I tell him he will live to be a hundred. So, differences of opinions. 

Maybe we just both need a little space from one another sometimes. Maybe the traumatic childhood I grew up in has shattered and screwed me up in more ways than I know of. 

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Can I give someone the cold shoulder? Damn right I can. After all, I am my mothers daughter.

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Enough said.

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