The Map of my Heart

A few days ago I started writing an new entry to my blog. This is what I wrote:

There is an inordinate amount of bickering in this house.  We bicker about everything and anything.  It has become a habit and it's not very nice.  I need to change my part in it, because for sure I own 50%of the bicker shares.

The question is how to change the habits of a lifetime, or what seems like a lifetime.  I love my husband.  Of that there is no question.  I sincerely believe he loves me and yet, we seem to clash far too often.  Not big clashes, no major earthquakes though sometimes those do happen, but small barbs and little poisonous darts that make me unhappy and judging by his reactions, make him unhappy too.

I sometimes feel like we are stars in a bad American sit-com and our little snipes should have a canned laughter soundtrack in the background.  I also see that there is a little discomfort accompanying the laughter. 'Do these people really love each other?  Is this really a solid relationship?'  Yes, is the short answer to both questions though maybe we've forgotten how to be kind to those really closest to us.

I have written before about my need to be right and I guess this is sadly what I see again.  I still have a tremendous need to be right, a need to deflect anything I judge to be criticism and send it back with spikes on. This is mostly what the bickering comes down to. Only I can change my part in this and see what happens.

... So, that is what I wrote on Saturday and now today, Tuesday, I don't feel the same at all.  something in me has relaxed and that relaxation has enabled me to take a step back and look at myself in this long relationship. What I see is interesting and enlightening. Enlightening in that the more I examine my attitudes and behaviour the lighter I feel.  The more I adjust the way I react to things and attempt to respond more from my heart, the lighter everything feels.

There is nothing, and I mean nothing, as challenging as allowing myself to love someone for so any years.  Every time I think that the partnership/marriage/love affair I have with this man cannot get any deeper or any more intense, I find myself surprised. The feelings that I have change from moment to moment - up, down, warm, cold, joyful, angry, sad, delighted -  though the foundation of love never waivers. I am still shocked at the clarity of the mirror that I see myself reflected in here.  Just when I think I can become more self-centred and isolated, I have a perfect reflection to teach me another way.  Just when I want to give up, pull the drawbridge in and never let anyone else in, I have a doorway to step through. How wonderful and how special this marriage is. How miraculous that I can still find new things to discover in both of us and how much easier it makes it to have someone to hold me while I explore.

Chava Rosenfarb, a Yiddish writer who recently died at the age of 86, used the expression 'the map of my heart' to refer to something so deep and so much a part of her that it was as if her heart had been mapped out to encompass this one thing.  I feel like this is what my life long love affair with my husband is about.  It is the map of everything.  It is what has taught me the most about myself and helped guide me along paths that sometimes felt frightening or insecure. It is the map of my heart that has taught me what deep love is, and given me the direction to head for when I felt lost. It even encompasses all those moments of irritation and all those times we snap at each other. The map also guides me back to the direction of love.  I never really feel lost.

In the past days, since I wrote my original plaintive cry about all our marital tiffs, I have felt a softening in myself.  Maybe this is due to a bout of illness, maybe it's also due to spending some time with a friend discovering some new things about letting go of my dad and his continuing inevitable decline.  Maybe it's because Ralph brought me home a bottle of real Coca-Cola, not my usual Diet Coke, and told me to treat myself because I deserved it.  Whatever the reason I don't see the bickering as much of a problem, just a habit that I can give up.  After all, I gave up smoking and I'm sure that was even more addictive.