The Shower Caddy & the Apple Pie.
A two part reflection on old stuff and new concepts.
Part 1:
Our shower caddy broke last week. After nearly 9 years of dedicated service, jerry-rigged suction, and soap-encrusted shelving, it finally fell off the shower head. That shower caddy joined us very early in our marriage. It came home during the first shopping trip to buy overnight necessities for our new house. It wasn’t meant to last forever, but I needed something to hold shampoo. Now as I look around, I’m noticing that many shower accouterments migrated to the floor years ago. That caddy hadn’t served a purpose for years, but I never considered getting a new one. It’s not that I was particularly attached to the caddy, replacing it just hadn’t occurred to me.
Attention and effort are limited commodities, so it makes sense that our minds acclimate to the occasional crooked cabinet or that crack in our phone-screens. Sometimes attending to these grievances is more trouble than it’s worth. But what if we inadvertently do the same thing with outdated mental concepts? What if our concepts of our lives, our relationships, ourSELVES are just as dysfunctional as my old shower caddy?
Part 2:
I’ve learned that my primary love languages are gifts and quality time. But much like a literal language barrier, these forms of affection are foreign to M. So as another week of Hanukkah drew to a close, I was not surprised that M hadn’t given me a gift. On the other hand, I was surprised to smell cinnamon and sugar as I came down the stairs…
M: “I didn’t know what to get you, so I baked you an apple pie.”
Me: “Are you sure you didn’t just feel like baking an apple pie?”
M: “No, I remember that you liked it at Thanksgiving, so I baked one for you.”
Me: “If it was really for me then I wouldn’t have to clean up after it.”
M: “I’ll get to that later.”
Me: “Sure you will.”
M, walking closer, head low, eyes narrowing: “Fine, then it’s not for you. I don’t know why I even bother trying, you’ll never see it. I’m canceling therapy, there’s no point.”
We’d been down this road before. M feels like all his efforts get lost in translation. I feel like he never bothers to speak my language. He gives up, which triggers my fear of abandonment… and around we go.
But this time was different. This time I saw the pain in his eyes before it turned into anger. All this time, my concept of our relationship had been that he hurts me, and isn’t invested enough to get hurt himself. But now I had desperately visible evidence to the contrary. I had hurt him… I didn’t know that I could hurt him.
In an instant, I realized that my concept of our relationship was as useless as that old shower caddy. Years ago that concept served as armor, but now it was shielding me from the very love I yearned for.
“I’m so sorry I doubted you. I can see that you really intended this pie as a gift, and I missed it.” I started to tear… “You spent hours of free time on me, and I missed it.”
He turned and hugged me… “Thank you for noticing.”
A month has passed, but few days go by without reference to the “apple pie incident”. It was truly one of the most important moments in our marriage. Intellectually, I knew that our history and my pain was coloring my perception of the present. But I had no clue that the lens had become SO thick, SO opaque, as to obscure an entire pie-sized gift.
