Greenery

I saw grass today and it was like being transported to a mythical country.

It’s something for a person raised in the Midwest, who has lived here for 70 years, and just got back from Alaska, to be sniveling with gratitude about twelve blades of grass at the end of the block.

It’s the unique magic of winter. It makes you all happy at the beginning, stoic in the middle, and sniveling and weak at the end.

The winter has definitely contributed to my intermittent bouts of pretend frailty. I’ve made the ice on the driveway a murderer lying in wait so I tiptoe out of the back door to my car like a fairy princess lest I awake the monster. Oh little sweet defenseless me!

It’s disgusting.

After my husband read my post about my cochlear implant battery dying, another episode of weeping defenselessness, he motioned at my closet and said, “You need to put on a power suit and get your act together.” It’s one of the things I like best about him. He is the least emotionally indulgent person I’ve ever met.

He isn’t cold or unfeeling. He just doesn’t indulge a lot of weak talk. Like “I can’t get this project done.” “Nobody likes my essay.” “My life is pointless.” “The ice is too slippery.” He just yawns and goes back to reading the paper. This tactic has kept me going for 35 years. I think he learned it in some deescalation workshop when he was a youth worker a century ago. Ignore lamenting and it will go away.

I’ve come to depend on this reaction of his. There’s no sympathy here, little lady.

Being on the receiving end of sympathy is nice sometimes but it can quickly become a debilitating thing, at least for me. When people feel sorry for me, I get worse. I don’t know what it’s like for other people. I never presume.