RESTLESS
As we started to reach the last act of our lives, I noticed a restlessness bubble up inside my husband. I sensed it as a palpable energy shift in our household. The air that flowed easily and casually now seems to laboriously drag itself up the stairs, through the floorboards, and into our bedroom.
In the daytime, he seems normal. But at nighttime, it’s violent. He tosses and turns in his sleep, twisting the bedsheets around his body like a tourniquet, severing torso from groin. He contorts himself into different shapes, elbows bent and legs tucked and shoulders strained. It’s as if he is struggling against the confines of his natural body.
At first I thought it was just because he recently retired. He worked terribly hard his entire life so that he could retire early, and now that it’s upon us, he doesn’t have another goal to strive for. Maybe this aggressive behavior is just listless thrashing. This perspective was enough to keep me going for a couple of months, but his restlessness was unrelenting. I had to come to terms with the fact that it was something deeper – something was calling out to him.
Slowly, his behavior slipped into the daytime. Whatever it was, it was clearly weighing on him. He was distracted when we spoke, he didn’t compliment my cooking, and he started to forget things that he usually reminded me of. Even physically, he seemed to slump closer to the ground. When I stood next to him in the morning, it felt as if he had gotten shorter. He was shrinking into nothingness
I asked my girlfriends what they thought about the situation over brunch one day. I impaled mixed greens with my fork as I listened helplessly.
My callous friend, Nora, grabbed my hand. “Monica, this is what starts to happen at this stage of our lives. When men don’t have a job to go to anymore, they start to feel useless. They don’t have a sense of self like women do.”
I didn’t think much of it, because she’s my callous friend, but the rest of the group seemed similarly concerned.
“Maybe he’s cheating?”
“Maybe he’s just sick.”
“Maybe he’s having regrets about his life?”
“Maybe he wants a divorce?”
“Maybe he’s feeling emasculated?”
“Maybe it’s nothing! Maybe he’s just being weird.”
By the end of the conversation, my mixed greens were gone from my plate, and an uneasiness spread through my body. I was unconvinced by their reasons, but the conversation validated me that it was something.
I wanted to leave him alone, and let him tell me in his own time. After all, isn’t that what makes a good marriage? Giving a person the space to be themselves, with you?
However, after months of watching my husband sink further into the earth, I couldn’t help it anymore. I burst into our living room, where he was sitting perched on our couch, staring out into the yard. There was barely a glimmer of joy in his eyes. I stepped between him and the window, and I confronted him.
“Derrick. I need you to talk to me. What is going on with you? You’re always home, so I know you’re not cheating. But you’re never here.” The seconds it took him to slowly look at me made my heart stop.
“You don’t deserve this, Monica. I have to tell you something”
Claws reached into my lungs to grab the air that it was holding. I could barely bring myself to ask him what he meant.
“I haven’t been honest with you.”
He sighed, air clearly pumping through his capillaries just fine. He was cheating. He’s been sick. He’s feeling regrets about his life. He wanted a divorce. He’s feeling emasculated.
“I’m addicted to pottery.”
I paused. “You’re what?”
“I’m addicted to pottery.” He barely faced me as he stood up. “It’s all I think about, day in and day out. I dream of mugs, of espresso cups, of plates, of ceramic phone holders.”
Noiselessly, he guided me into the cool, concrete basement of our house. As we turned the corner, my eyes widened in horror. It was just as he said. The entire left half of the basement was filled to the brim with pottery.
“I didn’t know how to tell you. But I couldn’t stop creating.” He started to give a tour of the different ceramics. He held them with a tenderness that made me think of our oldest child’s birth. He handled our child with less warmth than he was handling these plates.
“This one is for soup,” he said. “And then this one is for ramen. You see the difference in the bowl depths?” The sound of the bowls placed onto the wooden table seemed to echo through the basement, and into my soul.
He continued, “This is a bread and butter plate, whereas this one is a more traditional salad plate.”
I walked silently through the space, and really took in the rows and rows of dishes. My brain slowly processed this information as I watched mugs grow and shrink, plates expand and deepen , and the lip of different bowls curl into themselves.
My heart broke with each piece. Every piece represented time away from me, a medium that he loved more than me. Clay that was more enticing than I was. I walked further and further down the basement, until a misshapen mug made me stop dead in my tracks.
I felt my husband come up behind me, watching me notice the mug. “That one I made in honor of you,” he whispered into my ear.
I couldn’t help but smile.
