Doing Difficult

I've been thinking about DIFFICULT today. So many times we choose to forgo something we think is difficult to do. I do this all the time. It's difficult for me to bite the bullet and send my books out to publishers. So I have a backlog of FOURTEEN books in various stages of readiness to publish and a husband who doesn't think I'm a writer because I haven't published anything but one book, and that one struggles because of my decision on which publisher to use.

It's difficult to keep my house clean while I'm trying to pump out 50,000 words this month, so I let things slide and the house starts looking like the Clampetts live here. There are smudge marks on the doors and cupboards. My fridge is full of schmutz--a perfect germ haven. There was once a vacuuming and loads of dust bunnies emigrated to the book shelves.

It's difficult to talk to the people I love, so I just don't. I let things stew and simmer until they're boiling over and spreading goop all over the floor. Opportunities disappear, appointments go out the window, and our children grow up like they were raised by wolves. And then the others get lax too, and pretty soon I have no idea what's in the hearts and minds of anybody around me. Lonely!

It's difficult to clean out the shed and walk-in because of triple digit heat and the chewing out when the MAN gets home (he complains that he can't find his stuff in my carefully labelled boxes) so it's impossible to find anything or climb in there (you have to know how to chimney) or go camping with any speed. We've even had to do battle with two hives of bees and countless wasps because of the state of the shed.

All of these things involve choices and the payments for those choices (ie. consequences). What many people don't understand is that there are consequences for the things they choose to do, and those choices are cumulative. If a person chooses to vote for a certain person, they are, in a sense, responsible for some of the things that person does. I won't get into politics more than that.

When I think of people I greatly admire, it's those people who have done difficult things. Edward Pistorius was in the 2012 Olympics as a sprinter. Olympic-level sprinting is incredibly hard even with two sound legs. Pistorius has to run on blades. He ran in several sprints, even into the semi-finals. He was on his country's relay team...with stumps for legs. He's a beast, as my kids would say.

I've related in a previous post about the movie, Touching the Void which is done from a 1988 book by Joe Simpson, recounting his and Simon Yates' disastrous and nearly fatal climb of Siula Grande (6,344m) in the Andes in 1985. Simpson ended up climbing most of the way down that mountain with a broken leg. His friend had given him up for dead. Simpson had to make continuous choices to grasp life instead of lying back and caving to oblivion. He has my undying respect.

One of the leaders of my church once wrote that he never remembered his mother raising her voice. When I read that, I harked back to all the yelling I have done. How could she have gone his whole life without yelling once at her son? That idea amazes me. But each scenario, each annoyance or bad choice on his part she greeted with a choice of her own. She chose to meet his poor decisions and mistakes with grace and understanding. To me, that would be almost as difficult as climbing on a broken leg.

Many people have felt they've gotten away with ducking consequences for their actions. That simply isn't true. Even if it's unapparent on the outside that you've made poor decisions, those choices in the inside form who you are. You are making a groove with each choice you make. We all are. If we choose to repeat that action, the groove gets deeper. It becomes a habit and then an addiction.

We can whine and holler until our eyeballs fall out, but we're still the one who dug that ditch so deeply that we have a terrible time getting out. It was our own actions and choices that brought us heartache and misery, to a great extent. We made each decision to carve the rut deeper, or to hop out of that ditch and strike out on a different course. 

When I was small, I lived in a town, which had a little ski area right in town. I learned to ski on Calico Hill. It boasted two rope tows, one for the little hill and one for the big one. A rope tow is wound in a set of giant pulleys. When you want to go up the hill, you situate yourself correctly (or risk face planting in front of your jeering friends), grab tightly to the rope, and it pulls you as far up the hill as you can hold on.

As the day grows later, usually it cools off and the snow gets icy. The rope tows also get icy. But also the ruts get deeper. You'd better hope you get into the right ruts as the day wains, or you'll find yourself plowing into the ice with your nearly frozen face. Not fun. Or, you might hope you can do a standing jump in your skis. Not easy or fun. Either way, the rut you have carved all day will guide you where you'll go.

Even if the difficulties are not our fault, we can decide how we will think and act. One of my favorite books is by Corrie Ten Boom, called THE HIDING PLACE. She and her sister were incarcerated in a concentration camp because of their choice as Christians to help people escape from Nazi Germany. While in that camp they could have bowed to the incredibly hideous odds--something most people did in there. Corrie and her sister chose not to. They made their minds up to do the best they could. And they did it.

I've been reading a wonderful book by a gifted, successful, and insightful man named James A. Owen, called DRAWING OUT THE DRAGONS. It's all about the choices he's made and the forthcoming consequences he's suffered or enjoyed. He says in his book, "If you want to do something badly enough, you will. And people will help you. And if there's something you don't want to do, nobody will be able to help you."

It's all cumulative choices and decisions, weaving and interweaving to make a grand tapestry of life. You are the weaver. You are the doer of deeds. You can do difficult things. I can carry off those things which I never thought I could. I just have to make the decision to start, and then proceed to the finish.

Red Monkeys and the Summit

I read another blog by a young man who had been divorced twice and was re-hashing his failures and foibles in an attempt to make a better relationship with future prospects. 

The information was valuable. I could see so many areas where I've got room to improve. Some of the premises didn't apply to our situation, but are good ideas. Some of them seemed like ant hills to me. "Oh, that's a simple thing," I told myself. Little snowball. But the little snowballs are where the avalanche begins.

We forget or neglect to do the small things and pretty soon the big things seem like looking at K2 from the foothills. What we seem to need are a couple of sets of climbing gear so that we can clamp onto the cliff and endure to the summit. And the gear needs to be used quickly so that he doesn't see how far above it is and decide to wait in the car.

The other day I watched Touching the Void, a movie about a couple of British guys who went climbing in mountains in South America. As they were coming back off the summit, one of the men slipped and shoved his leg bone up through his femur, badly breaking it. 

His friend did his best to lower him down part of the mountain, although it was excruciatingly painful. Since their ropes weren't long enough to really work well, they'd lower him down to the knot between their ropes. The broken guy would find a foothold and stand on his good leg, and then the one above could untie and then re-tie the knot around the carribeaner.

 They both wondered how they would make it. After a while, it got dark and they both were exhausted and dehydrated. 

And then it happened.

The broken guy was lowered past an overhang, making it so that unless he climbed back up the rope, he couldn't take the pressure off so that the man on top could re-rope. The one above had no idea what was wrong and began to slip. All he could surmise was that the man below had fallen and was dead. In order not to get pulled off the mountain, the one on top made the fateful decision to cut the rope.

The broken one fell into a deep crevasse and became wedged. He tried to climb out, but dropped one of his two Prussic knots (a system by which one can climb back up their rope). He thought all was lost. But here's where the heroism comes in. That man worked his way successfully off the mountain and is alive today.

He had to do unspeakable things such as: let himself fall further down the crevasse, hop on a false floor hoping not to hit a weak spot, drag himself over miles of boulders and treacherous snow bridges, drink from mud puddles, warm himself with his own urine, and time himself to get to little goals of a few yards.

My estimation of that young man hit an all-time high. Nothing in my life has been that difficult. To me, that young man had a spectacular reason to whine, to give up, and to make excuses. I do not.

What that young man didn't have in his equipment was prayer. He didn't have a belief in God which could sustain him and buoy him up. He had a spectacular will to survive...alone.

Which is also what the young man in the blog post was missing--a relationship with God. I think that neglecting that one imperative piece of equipment can be like dropping your Prussic knot. Or worse, cutting your own rope. Why not ask for help from the Being who made the crevasse in the first place?

So recognizing that this marriage is a three-way relationship is something we've sort of done, but not really. We're kind of allowing Him to be our roommate. I personally want a deeper relationship with both of them, because the whole expedition will work much better if God is the one belaying us.

My first marriage crashed badly. It was as if he'd cut the rope for no apparent reason at the time. From where I stand now, I realize I was surpassing naive,  lacking in confidence, and afraid to stand up for myself and for what's right. I let him drag me through several things I'll never allow again.

He'd never learned how to climb safely, as his mother had been married and divorced some six times or so. The Ex eventually had his own three or four more marriages. I'm not certain if he's finally found a way to keep from cutting his companions free because I haven't talked to the chap in about twenty four years. I don't miss him. Off belay.

So I've also been trying to re-apply some of the principles I learned in the other blog. One of them is putting fun back into the relationship.

My ice breaker for getting back into these ideas is a monkey. The other day I found one from my kids' Barrel o' Monkeys. For days, now, we've had a great time trying to tag each other with that monkey so the other person will hopefully get out of the house and later find it. He found it in his pajama pocket once (why do we need pockets in pajamas anyway?) and I found it in my hair this morning after he kissed me good-bye. I almost did it today hiding it in his wallet (but the dang thing was too fat so the wallet didn't close well). What that little red monkey has done is start bringing the playfulness back into our marriage. 

Now to get him to go walking with me. Or any other fun thing away from the computer. 

We're pretty good about kissing and saying we love each other. But I'm horrible about talking about him to my friends. I'm torn. In one book I read that we need to never talk about our spouse to our woman friends. But in all the rest of my experience, I note that we have a web of woman-type friends for a reason. They help you figure out what you're doing wrong so you can fix it.

I also note that many men just DON'T talk, and mine in particular. He doesn't have the capacity to sit there and speak deeply to me. There is no pillow talk arena. I'm not sure if that is totally a dead end, or if I'm just not realizing how I can acquire the key to that particular door.

Here are some great ideas that come from me and from other people who have been through it. Hopefully I can re-apply some of the ones I've let slip in my life:

1. Keep God in the middle of your relationship. He knows His stuff.
2. Don't stop doing the things that you did during dating just because you've snagged your spouse, like dancing, or working out, or wearing deodorant and nice-looking clothing, or cleaning, or holding hands and making out. It's dishonest and lazy.
3. Don't diss him/her to your friends just to diss him/her (I wish there was an IT you could use in English to include both sexes like there is in German.). It's disloyal and counterproductive.
4. Fight fair. Don't dredge up instances from the past, because it's likely they'll have forgotten all about that instance and feel like you're putting them on trial. Unless you both like affidavits, don't muckrake. If you have a beef, handle it when it first rares its ugly head.
5. Don't say stuff you wouldn't like said to you, even if it's true. Come on, this is the person YOU MARRIED FOREVER! You made a vow before God and others to love and cherish this person you're calling names. Cut it out!
6. Making your spouse read your mind is a bad idea. It's a good bet you aren't married to a mind reader. Expecting them to do so is not only folly, it means you don't respect them enough to talk to them.
7. Never disrespect your spouse to your children. The best present you can ever give your children is to love their parent.
8. Don't get lazy and stop doing the things you like to do together. And if you do stop for health or other reasons, find something else to do together. Love that person enough to do a few things they like that you don't care for.
9. Don't always expect the other person to repent first. They're probably expecting the same thing, and soon you'll expect yourself right down to the lawyer's office.
10. Not talking so you won't fight isn't going to cut it. You have to communicate. You have to have enough love and respect for your mate to make time to talk to him/her, and you don't make them 'pay' for wasting your time talking. It's a privilege and a duty and a right. They are your spouse, after all, not your roommate or your handyman/maid. You MARRIED that person across from you.
11. Finally, forgive the spouse. There is no way you are perfect. That means that at some point in your life you're going to do (or have done) something so stupid that you'll count yourself lucky if it goes unnoticed. So why would you think that your spouse, another flawed individual, should be perfect at all times? Cut them some slack. They do that for you all the time. (Mine does every time he opens the fridge and the black hairy goop that used to be cauliflower tries to lynch him.)

So that's a rough list for now. I'm certain I've missed important ones. I have more than many of them to work on. I'm determined to make it to the summit safely this time.

On Belay! And where did I put that little red monkey?