December 14 prompt: Appreciate. What is the one thing you have come to appreciate most in the past year? How do express gratitude for it? -Victoria Klein
December 15 prompt: 5 minutes. Imagine you will completely lose your memory of 2010 in 5 minutes. Set the alarm for 5 minutes and capture the things you most want to remember about 2010? -Patti Digh
I once again have been having health problems, so I am combining some prompts, and may do so in a couple of days again.
I received the Dec. 14 prompt, and I was beginning to feel like I was being asked essentially the same thing over and over. What did you like best about X? What was the best thing you did? Where did you have the most fun? I know it isn't quite that simplistic, or overly gooey sweet. I understand it must be hard to come up with prompts. But I wonder if the authors aren't becoming too engrossed in making their prompt as "deep" as possible. I can keep only mining that single, "deep" vein for so long. I thought about skipping the prompt outright.
But then I received the December 15 prompt. These kind of timed exercises have always helped me; as I have said, I do best with a line in the sand. Plus, I felt like if I just started spewing memories, the things I appreciate might naturally rise to the surface. So I set my smart phone's timer for 5 minutes, and these are the memories that "pushed through"
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Oregon Country Fair-Avocado Dream Boats-The Ritz-spinach and cheese turnovers-glitter-Mount Shasta, the halfway point to Veneta-Driving near Corning for olives-Trip to Lassen Volcanic National Park-Mud Pots-Almost brain surgery-More and more seizures-More and more migraines-Violet and the root canal-mixed episode-hypo manic episode-Foot Surgery-Life on a scooter-DH gets new job-Quitting daycare-S, J and H-Emptying our savings-We end the year in the black-Making it through the tough times-growing closer-planning for our 10th anniversary-Job interview at a dispensary-coloring books-shopping for jewelry-Eni-thing-It's a Girl Thing-thrift shop hunting-starting to read again-learning cribbage-Happy 9th Anniversary-DH turns 40-Niece turns 3-"Sister3" turned 40-Oaksterdam University-Medical Cannabis-activism-Violet in the yard-riding a bike-car breakdowns-Crazyboards, and blogging-Blogger, and blogging-Told my mother to back off-My mother aged significantly-My father is sick
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Now, I did corrects some spelling, and re-organize the list so it was a little more coherent to me. Out of the 49 I quickly counted (which means the actual count could be anywhere between 47 and 51), 16 (about a third) of the memories I came up with had to do with my husband's and my health and finances.
You can see by the things I italicized what was going on in our personal lives: Fears about health and money, surgeries, disappointment, and just overall stress. I know a lot of marriages are pulled apart by money and health problems. I have watched it happen to friends and enemies alike. Maybe it is because we have both spent our lives since puberty struggling with illness. Maybe it is because we both know what it is like to have negative worth, and that it is survivable: At one point right before I met DH, my finances were so bad, the FDIC wouldn't allow me to have a bank account. He had almost as bad a history. We have worked hard to build up our savings in our marriage, because we are both late to the land of "financially responsible adulthood."
For 11 months, we watched our savings dwindle. We actually were starting to think of selling parts of our 401k. I hate money. Hate. it.
So when my husband was suddenly hired at the end of August, literally days before he was scheduled to have brain surgery, it blew a hole in our plans, and I hate when there is a change of plan. Suddenly, there was not going to be brain surgery, but there was going to be income.
Much to my shock, I was torn. I had spent the entire month of August being tended to my psychiatrist, preparing myself for my husband's surgery. I wasn't intentionally trying to make it "all about me," but I just fell apart at the idea of something going wrong.
Yet when the surgery was postponed so he could take the job, I was angry at him for not doing the surgery instead. Since then, the threat of surgery has reappeared, but I have come to accept I cannot make this decision for DH. He will have it within the next year, it is just a matter of whether it is sooner or later.
So all of this depressing stuff has ironically made me appreciate my husband and my marriage more than ever. I am bad at expressing gooey emotions towards my husband. But we have had so much time together in 2010, that we were able to talk about our relationship and our marriage a lot, and no matter how difficult or thorny the topic. It never seemed to take a negative turn.
So this is not exactly riveting, but I show my appreciation for my husband and my marriage by keeping the lines of communication open, and trying to be brave enough to say things I am nervous about saying. So far, it is working.
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