Thank you, thank you, thank you all. Though I took pains to assert that imperfect marriages are likely the norm, the rush of relief I felt reading through your comments suggests that while I was sincere, it was more a sincere hopefulness than a sincere certainty. More specifically, I believed that plenty of marriages were host to small or mid-sized problems, but was genuinely shocked to hear that bunches of still-married couples had come close to calling it quits at one time or another. I don’t mean to sound as if I rejoiced at your marital misfortunes, but, well…you know. Misery, company, etc.
I am unreservedly glad that my own parents divorced, but it did leave me without a clear idea of what a healthy, “normal” long-term partnership looks like. Scott is the only person I have lived with, and my only significantly long-lived romantic relationship. Thanks to this inexperience, the first time we had a real fight I was sure it meant we were breaking up. We weren’t, and the next morning Scott was apologetic and blithe. I remained puffy-eyed and suspicious, baffled by his ability to return to normal.
“People fight,” he said, baffled at my bafflement. “Haven’t you ever had a fight before?”
Truthfully, I hadn’t. Not even in a friendship. I’d lost friends, sure, but there had never been any airing of grievances. I am from a tribe that fervently avoids confrontation or Displays. (I do remain a card-carrying member of Pathologically Conflict-Averse Citizens For Change if it’s All Right With You.)
One of the more difficult pieces of moving forward after a dire marital episode is that having scraped the bottom, you remain uncomfortably close to said bottom for a while. You lack the cushion built up by a long period of things going well, so that, for instance, when your spouse uses The Unacceptable Tone, instead of it feeling like a blip on the radar, it feels like the last straw—because honestly, there is only the one straw there right now. Your inner monologue goes straight to “Screw it! I’m DONE.” Clear thinking is critical, because the daunting flip side of having worked to clarify what I can and can not live with is this: I have to be prepared to enforce the boundaries I set, or they are meaningless. Even Simone knows as much. But it is hard to think clearly while pulled in too many directions by fear, by anger, by hope, by exhaustion.
I try not to examine the current upward trend too closely or make any sweeping, definitive statements, because it seems that whenever I catch myself thinking Everything is Fine Now! disharmony rushes in, as if out of spite, and any upset is then amplified and distorted by disappointment. I remember this from dealing with my father—for years, every time he was medicated and doing well, my wariness would wane and I would relax enough that the next bout of mania came as a brutal sucker punch. I’d wonder how I could have been so stupid and naïve…and then, over a slightly longer interval this time, the cycle would repeat itself.
For now, honestly, my priority is less Us and more Me, under the theory that a stronger, happier, healthier Alexa is not a luxury but a necessity, if one that I stubbornly jettison whenever the opportunity to worry about or take care of someone else comes along. In service to the “healthier” bit of that priority, I bought myself a Fitbit, trusting that my competitive nature and obsession with numbers and analytics would make the device an effective motivator. Happily, this has turned out to be true, however the first day I wore the thing gave me a terrible shock. I knew the number of steps that the apocryphal “average person” takes a day, and also knew that, working at home, I would likely come in a bit below this number.
(A ha ha ha! “A bit below!” Oh, bless my heart.)
In reality, it turns out, in terms of steps taken/calories burned, I was a shade more active than your average person in a persistent vegetative state. I have since remedied this, but it was a blow all the same, and eye-opening to learn that it is not so much that I am eating too much as that I am moving nothing save my powerful jaws.
I’m not sure how to segue here, so for a palate cleanser, please read* this adorable news item about a pair of youthful goat-nappers.
Moving on!
One of the better pieces of 2011 thus far (and I realize that this is not as extravagant a statement as one might wish) was our first ever family vacation, which we took during the last full week of August. We went to Duluth, and stayed right on the lake.

The beach was steps from the door, and downtown was just a few minutes further along the shore. On our last full day, the three of us rented a bicycle surrey and pedaled alongside the boardwalk.

Every summer for years, my mother, brother, and I would head Up North, as one says, to the shores of Lake Superior. (We usually traveled much further than Duluth, but with a three year old in the car and limited funds dictating a brief getaway, a two-hour drive sounded perfect for this year.) We’d bring stacks of books and return with rocks collected from the beaches, beaches that are obligingly suited to mental states from giddy to contentment to grateful contemplation and right on through to perversely satisfying brooding (the latter of which was a favorite of mine during the teen years.) I remember every summer, and someday I will have to tell you more about them—suitably embarrassing pictures of Youthful Alexa included.
Simone loved the lake, and our tiny balcony. I read a whole entire book. We all ate hot fudge sundaes. I very nearly killed my husband with a rock. It was lovely.

What? Oh, that?
Well, after dinner on our first night, we tromped on down to the shore, where I skipped stones (rocks are “stones” when you skip them, somehow—why? By alliteration mandate?) and Simone, being a beginner and not yet ready for actual skipping, threw rocks into the lake. The sun was setting, and it was one of those German word moments, full of complicated heart-tuggings and that weird nostalgia for the present that having children seems to foist upon us. I found a particularly good skipping stone—thin and flat and roundish, with a sharp edge, and I whipped it out toward the water. Or rather I MEANT to, I really did. Alas, it didn’t sail smoothly from my index finger, but stuck to me until I was well into what is supposed to be the post-rock-release portion of my swing—the follow-through, to use a sporting term. Scott cursed, loudly, and that is when I realized that I had just thrown a very sharp rock directly leftwards, hitting my husband squarely in the side of the head.
I would have very much liked to disappear (we were not alone on the beach. There were WITNESSES.) but I couldn’t disappear, because I had to make sure that my spouse’s pupils were equal and reactive. Honest to god, you guys, I have no idea how he wasn’t at least bleeding (and the rock hit right about in the middle-meningeal-artery danger zone!), but I gave frequent neuro checks and except for a headache, he was fine. I was relieved because I love him, of course, and also because with a very public record of our recent marital problems, I was pretty sure that if he’d died, my insistence that it had been nothing but an unfortunate Stone Skipping Accident would be greeted with extreme suspicion.
But mild head injury notwithstanding, I stand by what I said before: Lovely.

*Speaking of, I would like to clarify that the new box in the sidebar, over there ——> is not an ad**, just a place where I shall feature people/places/things I like. Nouns of note, you might say! Or not—I won’t tell you your business.
**The box above that, of course, IS an ad, for my book. But I am not paying myself for its placement.