Published in the Fredericton Daily Gleaner, Monday, October 24, 2011
CLICK HERE TO LINK TO THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE
I don’t know who delivered the orange posters but I wanted to say, you have no idea, do you? And that time I hurt my elbow - it was white … Right?
If you didn’t understand what I just wrote, that can only mean one thing – you’re not my husband.
You see my husband is a genius – most days. He can figure out my half-sentences, my partial thoughts, and the stories I’ve started well into the plot – past the point of understanding anything about the tale I’m half-telling.
Maybe his ability to understand my fragmented communication comes from years of living with me. Maybe he’s totally in tune with my thoughts and feelings, maybe he’s really understanding my nuances – able to catch the partial phrases used over two-plus decades of togetherness and piece those words together like some mismatched quilt, because he truly understands and loves my mind.
OK, you can cue the ‘scratched-record-sound-effect’ right about here …
My husband cannot sew, and has a hard time with hints let alone nuances. And really, he’s behind the eight-ball before he even starts when it comes to trying to understand anything that comes out of my mouth on most days.
I am all over the place. I’m a hard girl to live with. I talk a lot, and thankfully he can zone me out. Some women are reading this and saying out loud – ‘She says she’s THANKFUL he can zone her out? Is she crazy? I hate it when my husband doesn’t listen to what I say!’
First, no, I’m not crazy, and second, really, I’m just afraid of housework.
Stephen and Theresa: Communicating through miscommunication for nearly 23 years!
Hear me out.
You see, I am a woman who talks a lot. (I’m really not as bad as I used to be … right Stephen? RIGHT??!!) To avoid my constant chatter when we’re home, Stephen must do things to occupy himself. Housework is one way to successfully zone me out. You can’t hear what I’m saying when you’re genuinely busy with a noisy vacuum cleaner or a tumbling dryer.
And I’m not a fan of bloody messes. It’s not that I worry that he’ll someday decide to kill me because I can’t shut up; no, he’s too kind for that. I have just figured that if he listens to every single thing I have to say his head would explode.
Seriously – KABOOM!
Information overload. That would be one messy cleanup I’d rather not contend with. I think of this fact whenever I’m about to get mad because I have to repeat myself, or he forgets one of the eight million bits of information I have imparted upon him over the years.
This is not to say we don’t talk. We do – and he does listen – or at least he tries.
There are sweet and tender conversations before bed, serious conversations about the kids, and great debates about news events and politics. Then there are the ‘other’ conversations – the ones that take place when we’re doing something together, like dishes, or folding laundry – where he’s held captive for a short time.
Sometimes I feed him half-thoughts and missed points and jumbled stories that I expect him to understand. Most days he takes a shot in the dark and guesses what I’m talking about. Other days he laughs out loud and questions what the heck I’ve just said. On days he gets it, I just keep going, nattering on, oblivious to the amazing mental acrobatics he’s just performed. On those days, where he deserves a medal, I unwittingly oblige and hand him a dish-towel or clean underwear to fold.
In those moments where he’s unable to perform amazing mind-bending feats in seconds (maybe he’s not had enough sleep, or not eaten the right foods – much like a marathon, you have to be prepared for these intense synaptic events), he laughs out loud, pokes a bit of fun and thus begins the usual to and fro-ing that has become the custom in our relationship.
He tells me he has no idea what I’ve just been talking about. I then come back with the obligatory ‘how could you not know?’ feigning innocence, and begin my pontification. I am confident he is wrong, and I am sure the entire story has been verbalized, and I believe he just wasn’t listening.
Most days he can quickly find the holes in my argument – easily pointing to inconsistencies in the conversation – a conversation that obviously began inside my head long before my mouth was engaged.
It is then I point out that I am merely trying to make him laugh, to keep him guessing, to shake things up – for the sake of our marriage. I point out that I’m the giver here – and that he better remember that fact.
This is usually the point where we both get the giggles and are quickly reminded of how lucky we are. He almost always laughs at my miscommunication instead of getting mad. Throughout much of our relationship we’ve been able to make fun of our/my silly misunderstandings instead of arguing about them. I know this is one of the main reasons we’re still happily married.
Because when it comes right down to it, Rick Mercer IS able to see him … and golf balls can’t be scooped out on their own … right?
Theresa Blackburn is a wife, mother and New Brunswick Community College instructor who lives and writes in Woodstock. You can email her at theresa@mybigfatlife.ca, or join her group, Big Fat Life, on Facebook. You can also follow her on Twitter @MY_BIG_FAT_LIFE
