Understanding

Years ago, my husband and I went with some friends to see a stage show in a neighboring city. One friend was considering directing the show, and wanted to look at a production before making the final choice.

The show is called "Six Women With Brain Death," and it's very funny. In one scene, a character is onstage alone, cataloging her life's woes - failed marriages, sullen, uncooperative kids; just normal, everyday stresses, undoubtedly aggravated by her own responses. Addressing the audience directly, she laments, "Oh, I know that you could understand what I'm going through - but you probably don't."

I do not have a delicate giggle of a laugh - I have a belly laugh. I guffaw. At that point I simply howled with laughter. It was loud and unrestrained. It was also the only laugh in the theater. No one else so much as sniffed or smirked. I, on the other hand, was tickled to my core. There are few statements that I find to contain more truth than that one - and the truth is funny. So, in this crowded theater, I alone laughed without reservation, and the sound echoed through the quiet auditorium.

The actress onstage did something that actors are trained to not do; she turned, looked right at me, and broke "the fourth wall" (the imaginary, transparent "wall" separating the stage from the audience). Pointing straight at me, she said, "Except for you, ma'am." Then she went right back to the script.

To this day, I cannot imagine why no one else thought the line was as funny as I did. The human condition demonstrates, over and over, that while it is theoretically possible to understand others, in practice it's more miss than hit.

I never can wrap my head around people explaining how intolerable a situation was, and why they had to flee from it, by saying, "I just felt so alone." To me, that's just as much a given as saying, "I was breathing." I'm not entirely sure that it's possible to not feel alone. We're each alone inside of our heads. It just seems like biology to me.

What I think they might mean is "alienated." I totally do know how that feels - the feeling that you don't fit, you never will. On the other hand, that just seems expected, too. I have never met a human who said, "I always felt so connected and understood." Does anyone feel like that? Ever? If they do, it certainly isn't in school, or as the new hire on a job, or as a newlywed, a new parent, a new arrival to a new town/country, or, really, most other circumstances in life. It isn't as the artistic kid in a family full of ranchers, or the kid who hated school in a family full of PhDs, medical degrees and law degrees. It wasn't when you carefully chose an outfit, and everyone at the function looked horrified by it. It wasn't when you tried to explain your feelings to your parents, or to your children. It wasn't when you stood in a meeting or social activity or family gathering counting the minutes until you could leave. These experiences are universal. I am really not sure that their lack is.

Sometimes, someone will explain their divorce by saying, "I felt so alone, even when my spouse was there." Again, while I understand that they're sincerely in pain, it doesn't compute. While I adore my husband, he does not instinctively understand me (or anyone else), or I, him (or anyone else). He likes surprises; I like predictability. When I'm cold, he's hot. He likes loud; I like quiet. He's chatty; I'm not. We spend a lot of time wondering what in the world is up with the other person.

Often enough for it to be an expected occurance, not a deviation from the norm, in my memories of growing up, I'll forget that other people experienced something with me. I'll tell a story about my second grade teacher, and someone will say, "Oh, yeah - and remember the time that she..." Well, sure, I remember the time, but I'd forgotten that my friend was there. I've done this with my sister, too.  I'll be talking about a family vacation, and she'll chime in, and for a few seconds I'll think, "Was she there?" Of course she was, we're siblings, it was a family vacation, but when I look in my mind, I see me there, by myself. This will happen with my husband, too. I'll forget that he experienced something with me, until he starts talking about it.

Now, before you decide that I'm terribly lonely and depressed and need a party or something, alone does not equal sad and lonely. I like being alone. My mother, my brother, my son - we're pretty solitary beings. We enjoy solitude. Solitude is less lonely than being surrounded by people. So when I say "alone," it's likely to mean "tranquil, relaxing, calming." As I said, "alienated" is something else entirely. Being alone is not a cry for help, at least not to me.

My husband is also sure that his highest good as a husband is to read between the lines and ferret out what I "really mean." I think the highest good of a spouse is to listen to spoken words, exact words, and believe them. (I mean, why would anyone not want to be believed?) This means that we are constanly irritated. He'll try to figure out what I'm not saying, and act accordingly, and my reaction will be, "Did you not listen to me?"

The reverse is also true. He'll say something like, "I wonder if the Christmas lights still work," then be annoyed that I did not hear, "Tomorrow after I'm off work, I want to shop for lights."

"I told you that we needed to buy lights! You knew I wanted to do that this afternoon!"

"No, you wondered out loud if the old lights still work! That's not planning a shopping trip, much less planning an exact time for shopping!" He is just sure that "it was implied."  Why else would he bring it up?

Maddening.

A significant number of people who've known me for years are sure that they will know what I'm thinking, or doing, and why, but they're really bad at it.

I was once invited to an event that started with a tour of a local brewery, then ended with dinner. I showed up in time for dinner, and one friend said, "Oh, come on. You mean to tell me that your religion forbids you to even be in the same room as brewing beer?"

Wow; just so far off anything resembling accurate. I said, "No, it doesn't. I just have absolutely no interest in a brewery, so I'm not going to spend my time touring one." I cannot imagine that this was not obvious. My friend looked startled, and mumbled, "Oh. I guess."

(I think that, many times, when someone tells a story about how they knew this one person who was {fill in the blank}, and they saw their religious restrictions/weird behavior with their own eyes, it stems from an event like this where someone did not ask, but simply assumed.)

I'll tell a story, or write a Facebook post, and people who have known me for most of my life will say, "Oh, I know you! At that point, you (fill in the blank)" - and they will be so far off the mark, they're not even in the ballpark anymore.

I do the same thing. I'll assume that someone will be thinking or doing what I would do in their situation, and I will be so wrong. So very wrong.

This, folks, is why that line was so funny. Because you could understand what I'm going through, but you probably don't - and vice versa.

Compatibility, or Lack Thereof

On paper, my husband and I are not a good match. Oh, sure, our astrological signs, at least as far as the Chinese are concerned, are compatible, but most indicators say otherwise. We'd been married for only a few months when I took one of those magazine quizzes designed to tell you compatibility based on background comparison. It rated our compatibility as low and our chances of staying together as "grim." Honestly! We got a good chuckle out of that.

There are many ways to classify people. For instance, some people's sensory awareness is high, some people's is low, and most people fall in the middle. Of course, mine is high and his is low. I swear, I have the hearing of a dog - many supposedly ordinary sounds are absolutely painful. Sirens are misery. Loud, shrill or sudden sounds don't just startle me, they honestly hurt. I can't drive next to a motorcycle without plugging my ears. Things my husband can't smell drive me to distraction. My beloved, on the other hand, is just this side of oblivious. Tapping his arm to get his attention has to escalate to an almost bruising level before he finally notices and gives you a distracted, "Hmm?" I find large crowds, loud music and flashing lights to be absolutely exhausting; he finds them to be exhilarating and energizing. Just as I'm ready to collapse in a heap of fatigue, he's just getting revved up. The longer an unpleasant sound - say, an alarm - goes on, the more it shreds my nerves, while the more time it sounds, the more my husband relegates it to background, white noise and finally fails to even register it.

"Shut that thing up!" I'll yell, and he'll look at me, puzzled - "What thing?"

The problem with this is that he tends to think I'm overreacting to any given scenario, while I find him to have all the sensitivity of a rock. This also bodes badly for long term cohabitation.

He likes his beef practically still mooing; I like mine almost turned to leather. He would happily have bread or rolls with every meal; I tend to forget that bread exists unless I'm making a sandwich. He likes to sleep in a cold room; I prefer mine almost hot. He loves having a fan blowing on him; I hate the sensation of wind on my skin. I can't even sleep with my head on my arms, because my breathing blows the hair on my arms and makes me miserable.

Have you ever taken the "What Color Are You?" test, and read about your personality? Dan is a yellow who very much wants to be a red. I used to test at 60% blue, 40 % white, but as I get older I test more as 60% white, 40 % blue. I think I have 1 red and 1 yellow answer on my entire test.

Watching us make a joint decision is either comical or infuriating. The only reason I entertain any idea is to make and act on a decision. I want the time weighing options to be brief, and feel that it exists only as a stepping stone to taking action. Not Dan; for him, the entire point is weighing options. He can happily weigh options for literally years. Making an actual decision causes him stress, and acting on it causes even more stress, because, as he sees it, you've now "eliminated all your options." He cannot imagine why I spend all my time actively trying to eliminate options. I cannot imagine why he is willing to spend enormous amounts of time and energy thinking about anything unless he intends to do something about it.

The more important, and the more permanent, a decision is, the more it ties him in knots. He will happily spend x number of dollars on a restaurant meal, but balk at spending the exact same amount on clothing because if he buys something physical, he'll be "stuck with it," whereas if he has a lousy meal, well, he can rectify that in a matter of hours.

He is afraid that any decision he makes might be the wrong one. I find this to be fear of commitment of the most profound sort. I think that very few questions even have a wrong answer - who cares if you get the brown one or the green one, as long as you get one? If you're going on vacation, you absolutely must pick a destination, or you're going nowhere. Most of life is not "Sophie's Choice."

Whenever we've bought a house, I have been unable to imagine signing the papers unless I can imagine being 90 years old in the house. The very first time we bought a place, I had a one year old and one on the way, and I checked out what high school they'd be going to and where the bus stop was. We were still packing up the apartment when Dan started saying, "When we sell this house..." It exhausted me to even think about. "We don't even live there yet! How can you think about selling it?" He was baffled. "Do you want to be stuck there forever? Don't you want something nicer?"

Occasionally, someone will ask me how Dan ever got married or had children. Some of them aren't quite sure whether or not to believe my answer, which is that he was able to because he didn't think it would be permanent. Between the belief he grew up with that monogamy is unnatural to his belief that no one was ever actually going to like him enough to live with him long term, he figured it was pretty much a done deal that one day he'd come home to an empty house. That was OK by him - he took an "it'll be fun while it lasts" approach.

I, on the other hand, was crystal clear on the fact that marrying this man meant that some day I might be changing his adult diapers. I certainly didn't plan on having children with a weekend dad.

After a few years, adding kids and mortgages to the mix, it dawned on him that we were always there when he came home. Don't get me wrong, there are absolute deal breakers that would have me out so fast that I didn't even stop to pack, and he knows what they are, but in their absence I'm in it for the long haul. He had never bothered to make a long term decision, assuming that he wouldn't have to. Now, and from his point of view, very suddenly, he had to make a permanent, lasting, no do-overs decision. Was this the life he wanted, or wasn't it?

It freaked him out. He lost his mind a little. (Especially since he'd always thought, for reasons unclear even to him, that he'd be dead long before he reached middle age.)

After deciding that he really did want this life and this family, he was almost giddy. I have to admit, my reaction was more that he was coming late to the party. Nice of you to finally show up, hon, we've all been waiting for you.

I asked him, years later, what in the world he'd been thinking. "Nobody stayed married," he said, pointing out that he'd come of age in the late 70s. I have to admit, society's track record in this regard is not sterling, and the 70s didn't do much to help.

Fast forward: our next wedding anniversary will be our 25th. It's not actually that much different than the 24th or 26th or any other number, really, but I still think it's a big deal. In a few weeks, we will climb on a cruise ship with all of our children and our son in law, who'll be celebrating his first wedding anniversary with our daughter. We'll go to the Bahamas, snorkel, eat too much and get sunburned. It will be well deserved.

Happy anniversary, Dan, and many more to come.

(Yeah, we enjoyed that cruise.)