Trust and Doubt

My new favorite thing to do, is sit at my dining room table facing my patio, while I eat, and watch for hummingbirds.

I don’t always get to see any, but sometimes I get lucky.

Occasionally I’ll get lost in thought, especially when I have doubts about something.

The other day, I was very preoccupied in my head, wondering if I was heading in the right direction in my life.

Part of that was also wondering if Mr. Artist really is the one for me or if I’m just caught up in the rose colored honeymoon stage.

I was very deep in thought, combing through memories and experiences to see if I’ve missed any signs or red flags that point towards otherwise.

While I mindlessly focused on my plate, I happened to glance up just in time to see a hummingbird flying away from my feeder.

It made me think of how symbolic it was.

God is always there, I just have to look up.

So I remembered his faithfulness and said, “Okay, I trust you.”

Thursday night I got pissed off at Mr. Artist because he unknowingly said something stupid that sounded like objectification of women and had nothing to do with what I asked, which upset me.

Plus, he did this thing (that he does sometimes) where I couldn’t tell if he was joking or serious and even when I blatantly asked him to clarify, he  didn’t, so it really pissed me off more.

(I hate frustrating or confusing people and never do so on purpose, so it angers me when someone does it intentionally, joking or not. Probably a childhood thing)

Anyway, I told him he was pissing me off and I don’t think he knew what to do with that so he started back tracking a bit, which  just made it worse and by then I was done.

I had to work extra hard to bite my tongue because when I get angry, I want to say mean things and can cut a person into shreds.

He apologized before he left but all I could do was look at him and say good night.

When he got home, he texted me and said he felt bad about the way the evening ended.

I said, “Maybe the joke would have been funnier if I were a guy.”

Yes,  I’m snarky when upset.

He said my response was salt on the wound and wasn’t cool, then asked why I would say that.

I told him, “Because that’s something you would say to a guy. I was a bit offended by it.”

He apologized, saying he felt like an asshole and didn’t realize he offended me and could see how I would be offended.

Then he asked if I would accept his apology.

I said, “Of course I do. I just need time to cool off.”

So when telling my co-worker John about this exchange the next morning, I realized that I was feeling emotional and then I burst into tears.

Thankfully my co-workers are all therapists so this didn’t even phase him.

He asked me what this was bringing up for me and I kept saying, “I don’t know, I don’t know.”

Then I started gathering my thoughts while wiping my tears.

I started talking about how terrified I am of making the same mistakes I did in my marriage.

In the early years of marriage, I didn’t express my anger or frustration, and instead I would hold it in, ignoring it away until it would overflow and then I’d rage out and say mean things.

Towards the later years, I worked very hard on being more communicative and expressing my emotions to her in non-blaming or hurtful ways.

It’s something I wasn’t perfect at, but I feel like I’ve improved 80%.

However, the resentment of un-expressed frustrations during the early years had embedded itself in me so that whenever she repeated those behaviors, it just added onto what was already festering inside, even as I tried to forget it.

When I got a divorce, I told myself I would not repeat that pattern again.

I have become very intentional in the way I communicate and express myself to others and especially now with Mr. Artist.

However, I had this fear that maybe I overreacted, said something hurtful, or that he would feel like I’m expecting too much from him and later resent me.

(That stems from my ex accusing me of having too high expectations and saying that I could never be pleased.)

I bounced these fears off of John and he said that he did not see my response as overreacting and was in fact very clear with Mr. Artist about what I felt and why.

He said that it sounds like Mr. Artist is just trying to keep up with me.

(We had talked about how Mr. Artist seems to have lived in this bubble where he hasn’t experienced or been exposed to much cultural sensitivity and being that he is white, he has this white man’s privilege that he didn’t even know he has and so I’ve been gently introducing more culturally sensitive ideas and perspectives to him because in some things, he is really kinda clueless)

And now I forget the reason why I wrote this.

Maybe just to keep track of my thoughts and reassure myself that I have changed and I am doing things differently this time.

Plus, I know I gush about Mr. Artist and how he sounds too good to be true, so I wanted to share that while he’s perfect for me, he’s really not perfect.

Still, I love him and I feel that as long as I keep trusting God and watching for his hummingbirds, things will work out the way they are supposed to, whatever that may be.