LJ Idol Week 4: Nobody Can Ride Your Back If Your Back's Not Bent
Why let your shoulders bend
Underneath this burden
When my back is sturdy and strong?
---- Ten Thousand Maniacs, "Trouble Me"
It is 2 in the morning.
We are sitting on the couch, facing each other, an empty bottle of port on the coffee table.
I have been crying. Or, more correctly, my eyes are sore and my chest tight with the effort it is taking me not to burst into tears, to dissolve into a puddle, to drown in my misery here in the living room of one of my oldest friend's homes. I know that if that dam bursts, the powerful current will carry me away, dash me on the rocks, finish me.
All the things that are unsaid hang thick in the air, like smoke, like mist.
I have just hung up the phone after a tirade from my husband -- the man I will leave within the year, though I do not know it yet. I am holding the phone in my hand, waiting for the panic in my chest and the bile in my throat to subside.
I am exhausted to the core of my soul from pretending to be all right. This man sitting across the couch from me, this man who has known me since we were both insecure 18 year olds away from home for the first time, who has seen me at my worst -- drunk, devastated from break-ups, sick, stressed from finals week and days of no sleep -- looks me full in the eyes. He takes my hands gently in his own. And he says,
"What the fuck?"
I blink.
"No, Susan, seriously, what the fuck? You're the bravest woman I know. You're a fucking Amazon. I've never seen you afraid of anything. Until you picked up that phone. Until you heard his voice. That woman who took that phone call isn't the warrior I know. So, what the fuck?"
I want to tell him to go to hell.
But he's right.
"I don't know," I manage to get out, right before the first tears break over my eyelids. "I don't know. I know I'm scared. I know I can't leave. I know I have to leave" -- that's the first time I've said these words out loud -- "but I can't. What will happen to me? What will people say? What will I do? What if I can't take care of myself?" The questions are pouring, fast and thick as the hot water flowing over my cheeks. I hear myself wail, "What will happen to me?"
He takes my hands firmly in his and pulls me to my feet. He leans in close to me, so close that if it were anyone else I'd think he was about to kiss me.
"You know what you have to do." His voice is firm. "Your marriage has gone septic. You have to amputate. Or you'll die."
I look down. "I know. But I'm scared."
"Look at me." I do. "If you jump, I'll catch you. I promise." He squeezes my hands and pulls me into his chest for an encompassing, brotherly hug.
For the first time in months I feel safe.
Jump, and I'll catch you. I promise.
Those are the words I'll cling to as I pack my bags in a breakneck rush a few weeks later, as I drive out of the parking lot of my apartment complex for the last time. I'll repeat them over and over, like a mantra, on the days when the harassing phone calls are too much, on the days when my sisters refuse to take my calls at all, on the nights I can't sleep because I'm clutching the knife under the covers afraid my ex will come bursting through the doors.
Jump, and I'll catch you. I promise.
Those are the words I'll repeat to my friend, my soul-brother, when he calls me on an August afternoon five years later to tell me his own marriage is in shambles, but that he is too afraid to leave.
Jump, and I'll catch you. I promise.
They say no one can ride your back if your back's not bent. And that's true. But what they forget to tell you is that sometimes the people you love need to be helped up from the floor, need to lean on someone, need to be carried. And you can't help them up, can't give them support, can't lend them the strength of your own broad back when their stamina fails, if you don't bend down. Sometimes our backs have to bend under the burden of love, not because we are sacrificing or compromising ourselves, but because in that moment we have the strength to give. And we carry those we love a little way, until they heal, until they regain their strength, until they are ready to walk under their own power again.
I will always bend in the name of love, welcome the weary traveler onto the broad and muscular expanse of my back, because I know what it meant to me to have someone to carry me.
If your sister or your brother
Were stumbling on their last mile
In a self-inflicted exile
You'd wish for them a humble friend
--- Dar Williams, "The Mercy of the Fallen"
Underneath this burden
When my back is sturdy and strong?
---- Ten Thousand Maniacs, "Trouble Me"
It is 2 in the morning.
We are sitting on the couch, facing each other, an empty bottle of port on the coffee table.
I have been crying. Or, more correctly, my eyes are sore and my chest tight with the effort it is taking me not to burst into tears, to dissolve into a puddle, to drown in my misery here in the living room of one of my oldest friend's homes. I know that if that dam bursts, the powerful current will carry me away, dash me on the rocks, finish me.
All the things that are unsaid hang thick in the air, like smoke, like mist.
I have just hung up the phone after a tirade from my husband -- the man I will leave within the year, though I do not know it yet. I am holding the phone in my hand, waiting for the panic in my chest and the bile in my throat to subside.
I am exhausted to the core of my soul from pretending to be all right. This man sitting across the couch from me, this man who has known me since we were both insecure 18 year olds away from home for the first time, who has seen me at my worst -- drunk, devastated from break-ups, sick, stressed from finals week and days of no sleep -- looks me full in the eyes. He takes my hands gently in his own. And he says,
"What the fuck?"
I blink.
"No, Susan, seriously, what the fuck? You're the bravest woman I know. You're a fucking Amazon. I've never seen you afraid of anything. Until you picked up that phone. Until you heard his voice. That woman who took that phone call isn't the warrior I know. So, what the fuck?"
I want to tell him to go to hell.
But he's right.
"I don't know," I manage to get out, right before the first tears break over my eyelids. "I don't know. I know I'm scared. I know I can't leave. I know I have to leave" -- that's the first time I've said these words out loud -- "but I can't. What will happen to me? What will people say? What will I do? What if I can't take care of myself?" The questions are pouring, fast and thick as the hot water flowing over my cheeks. I hear myself wail, "What will happen to me?"
He takes my hands firmly in his and pulls me to my feet. He leans in close to me, so close that if it were anyone else I'd think he was about to kiss me.
"You know what you have to do." His voice is firm. "Your marriage has gone septic. You have to amputate. Or you'll die."
I look down. "I know. But I'm scared."
"Look at me." I do. "If you jump, I'll catch you. I promise." He squeezes my hands and pulls me into his chest for an encompassing, brotherly hug.
For the first time in months I feel safe.
Jump, and I'll catch you. I promise.
Those are the words I'll cling to as I pack my bags in a breakneck rush a few weeks later, as I drive out of the parking lot of my apartment complex for the last time. I'll repeat them over and over, like a mantra, on the days when the harassing phone calls are too much, on the days when my sisters refuse to take my calls at all, on the nights I can't sleep because I'm clutching the knife under the covers afraid my ex will come bursting through the doors.
Jump, and I'll catch you. I promise.
Those are the words I'll repeat to my friend, my soul-brother, when he calls me on an August afternoon five years later to tell me his own marriage is in shambles, but that he is too afraid to leave.
Jump, and I'll catch you. I promise.
They say no one can ride your back if your back's not bent. And that's true. But what they forget to tell you is that sometimes the people you love need to be helped up from the floor, need to lean on someone, need to be carried. And you can't help them up, can't give them support, can't lend them the strength of your own broad back when their stamina fails, if you don't bend down. Sometimes our backs have to bend under the burden of love, not because we are sacrificing or compromising ourselves, but because in that moment we have the strength to give. And we carry those we love a little way, until they heal, until they regain their strength, until they are ready to walk under their own power again.
I will always bend in the name of love, welcome the weary traveler onto the broad and muscular expanse of my back, because I know what it meant to me to have someone to carry me.
If your sister or your brother
Were stumbling on their last mile
In a self-inflicted exile
You'd wish for them a humble friend
--- Dar Williams, "The Mercy of the Fallen"