More than three years ago, I sat on a shady outdoor patio on a quaint, historical side street of downtown Montevideo , Uruguay , enjoying a rare afternoon alone with my husband. My busy job at the U.S. Embassy kept us from having much time to relax together and just enjoy each other’s company. Our three children were in school and feeling annoyed to be there knowing that we had a day of freedom.
It was a peaceful blip in time, as I look back on it now, sitting there with my favorite companion, in a place where everything was stimulating and satisfying simply by virtue of it not being the United States, by its difference, its foreign-ness. I never feel more alive than I do when I am experiencing something new and different, unseen and undone before. Even in its simplicity, the day’s tenor filled me with happiness, and the man across the table from me, whose life I had been sharing for more than 15 years, filled me with contentment.
The silence was comfortable that day as we drank in the serenity of simply being together with no distractions and waited for our carafe of medio-y-medio, a Uruguayan staple made of half wine and half champagne and the perfect refreshment for a warm and lazy afternoon. Filling our glasses with a slight clink of glass on glass, the waitress smiled and breezed off to a distant table, leaving us again to each other.
I touched the stem of my glass and paused, searching for just the right sentiment to honor the mood, and then offered a toast to the day, …
“Here’s to time alone.”
T’s glass, halfway raised and tilted towards mine, stopped in mid-air for a moment before he snatched it back with a perplexed frown. “What did you say?”
“Here’s to time alone.”
T’s glass, halfway raised and tilted towards mine, stopped in mid-air for a moment before he snatched it back with a perplexed frown. “What did you say?”
Hovering between bemusement and astonishment, I hesitated, then repeated,…
“Here’s to time alone.”
Yet, his expression only became more confused, and then I became perplexed, worried that he wasn’t sharing my joy in the day. A beat passed, then a few more as we looked at each other for a long, drawn out moment of complete misunderstanding. Finally, he plunked his glass down on the table, and leaning slightly forward, asked in dismay,…
“Who the hell is Ty Malone?”
I roared, throwing my head back in full-bodied laughter before I could catch my breath enough to articulate more clearly my attempt to honor Time Alone and the satisfaction I felt in sharing it with him. We both laughed over that linguistic snag not only for a good ten minutes that afternoon, but also on into the future, time and time again as we remembered the simple pleasure of that day and the leisure we had enjoyed long enough to revel in a glass of wine and the birth of a private joke.
That day stands in sharp contrast to where we are now, a few years and many painful steps down the road. It wasn’t long after that sunny day on the patio that we left Uruguay in a panic as our oldest child’s health declined and the medical care in Montevideo proved to be insufficient. For nearly three long years hence, we have thrown all of our collective and individual energies into our son, fighting back fear as he struggled and we watched helplessly, trying everything and failing over and over to shift the direction of the wind.
“Here’s to time alone.”
Yet, his expression only became more confused, and then I became perplexed, worried that he wasn’t sharing my joy in the day. A beat passed, then a few more as we looked at each other for a long, drawn out moment of complete misunderstanding. Finally, he plunked his glass down on the table, and leaning slightly forward, asked in dismay,…
“Who the hell is Ty Malone?”
I roared, throwing my head back in full-bodied laughter before I could catch my breath enough to articulate more clearly my attempt to honor Time Alone and the satisfaction I felt in sharing it with him. We both laughed over that linguistic snag not only for a good ten minutes that afternoon, but also on into the future, time and time again as we remembered the simple pleasure of that day and the leisure we had enjoyed long enough to revel in a glass of wine and the birth of a private joke.
That day stands in sharp contrast to where we are now, a few years and many painful steps down the road. It wasn’t long after that sunny day on the patio that we left Uruguay in a panic as our oldest child’s health declined and the medical care in Montevideo proved to be insufficient. For nearly three long years hence, we have thrown all of our collective and individual energies into our son, fighting back fear as he struggled and we watched helplessly, trying everything and failing over and over to shift the direction of the wind.
My son’s journey is a conversation for another day, as it would take pages and pages to adequately tell his story and portray the multiple perspectives on how it unfolded. Suffice it to say, for now, that we are through the gauntlet, and while we recognize that in the end, we fared pretty well, we are not unscathed. Emotional trauma of the sort we experienced during those dark and stormy days leaves a trail of discarded dreams and bitter memories behind it. And like Hansel and Gretel trying to follow the breadcrumbs back home, I am finding that the path out of the woods to safer ground is no longer clear. I wish we’d thought to leave a few stones along the way as well.
Time Alone has become something I pursue for myself, in the purest essence of the word “alone,” which implies that it is not to be shared with another person. As I poured my heart and soul into saving my child, giving the dregs of what was left of me to my other two children who needed so much more than I had to give during those days, there was nothing left for me and nothing left for my husband. We walked parallel paths, occasionally overlapping as one failed philosophy on how best to handle things necessitated a shift, occasionally touching lightly during the darkest moments when fear of losing him took over and rendered all else insignificant. Our coping skills and strategies, after a time, stopped looking similar, and as the stakes grew higher for our son, we each dug deeper into ourselves and our own views, determined to manage things in the "best way," which meant implicitly that we pursued progress separately by following our own logic, discarding what we did not respect of each other’s. Some days, our respective “ways” were simply incompatible; other days, they were actually unproductive and generated more damage, the exact opposite of what we were aiming for.
Yet, here we are in the spring of 2009, and he approaches his 17th birthday with a level of health and confidence that I had feared he would never know. To see how far he has come is to witness a miracle, and I know that I would have paid any price requested of me, short of sacrificing my other children, to achieve this outcome. Indeed, the universe did not offer me a deal, did not indicate the cost in advance of the journey, did not make it clear to me that survival was something I could count on. So I signed on the dotted line, prayed I wasn’t selling my soul to the devil, and realized only after coming up for air that the price I paid was me.
I paid it, and I did so gladly. I gave up a connection with my own spirit, my own needs, and my own desires until I no longer understood what they were or what I had lost. To save him, I would pay it again, as many times as it might be required, but I am sorry for the loss of myself. The long sequence of sacrificing, compromising, negotiating, suppressing fear and anger, holding up other people, defending my child, and fighting with T about what was right, best, fair, and important has caused a lot of damage that will take much time and patience to heal. The damage has been done to me, to T, and to us. Because I lost myself and he lost himself, we lost each other.
Time for another journey. Time to set off for a destination unknown, through another wood with trees so dense that I cannot see too far ahead of each step, and so dark that I have to strain to see the tiniest sliver of light shining through. Time to see if I can even hope to find myself, to put the pieces of my spirit back together, and to keep putting one foot in front of the other until I reach the edge of the forest and step into the meadow that must be on the other side.
I don’t honestly know what will be in that meadow, although I carry with me the seeds of myself and my three beautiful children, and I will plant them like wildflowers wherever I end up. I know that T, as the father of my children and the witness of half my life, will be there in some capacity. How could he not be? But will he be a wildflower, too, blowing in the breeze of a warm afternoon in the same meadow where I find myself? Or does he also carry seeds, on a separate journey, to plant wherever he finds himself? I don’t know if he’s searching for a meadow, a mountain, a stretch of white sand, or something else altogether. I do know that we have to travel on our own for a while, and the unknown cost of this journey may well be our relationship.
Time Alone has since become an ironic metaphor for my life. From a misunderstanding that left us in peals of laughter to a level of disconnect that has left us isolated, broken-hearted, and alone, …
Time Alone, Ty Malone, Thyme Alone …
a linguistic jumble that represents the ease with which we cross from one plane to another in this universe, often without meaning to, wanting to, or understanding what it is we are choosing. As we did that afternoon, so long ago, in a beautiful place, in a far away land, we will have to patiently ride out the confusion until we emerge with clarity, and certainly, with both laughter and pain as well as yet another journey lying ahead.
Time Alone has since become an ironic metaphor for my life. From a misunderstanding that left us in peals of laughter to a level of disconnect that has left us isolated, broken-hearted, and alone, …
Time Alone, Ty Malone, Thyme Alone …
a linguistic jumble that represents the ease with which we cross from one plane to another in this universe, often without meaning to, wanting to, or understanding what it is we are choosing. As we did that afternoon, so long ago, in a beautiful place, in a far away land, we will have to patiently ride out the confusion until we emerge with clarity, and certainly, with both laughter and pain as well as yet another journey lying ahead.
