When The Mama Gets Worried

I swear to god. I was this close to calling the Coast Guard about ten minutes ago.
All day had passed without one word from that man, Mr. Moon, and the sun is setting and I didn't have the least knowledge of where he and his friend put their boat in nor did I have the phone number of his friend and neither did directory assistance.

And my stomach was in knots and the blood supply to my hands and feet had somehow gotten cut off and well, you know what anxiety feels like.

My number one rule (and perhaps the only one that truly matters) is Do Not Worry The Mama. I had enough sleepless, worry-filled nights in my life when I was married to my first husband who played guitar and so who had a damn fine excuse for not coming home at any certain time and I can't tell you how many times I planned his funeral, waiting to hear his car pull up in the yard and then by the time he did get home, I was ready to kill him and wanted to kill him but I never did kill him and now I just don't have any energy left for that sort of worry which is mostly okay because Mr. Moon does NOT stay out at night and he is good about letting me know where he is and when he'll be home and what he's doing and do I need anything at the store?

When the kids were little, Mr. Moon and I looked at a house we both wanted to buy. It was beautiful. Old. Ridiculously wide cherry-planked floors, a gorgeous kitchen, a piece of land with it that made our eyes water with joy.
But I would not buy it because I knew I had kids who would be learning to drive eventually, who would be driving home at night because that's what teenagers do, and the house was way up a two-lane country road with no lights, almost to Georgia, and I was absolutely aware of the fact that I couldn't handle the stress of waiting up nights for them to get home safely.

I still think I made the right decision.

I don't do well with worry. I am not a glass-is-half-full kind of woman. If one of mine is supposed to be somewhere at a certain time and they are not, I freak the fuck out. My mind goes places that would make Truman Capote shudder. I have spent my entire life waiting for the other shoe to drop and any disturbance in my tiny little universe seems like the Big One is surely about to happen or has, in fact, already happened and I just don't know it yet.

So when that phone rang and it was him, tired but okay, HIM, my husband, I was so damn relieved. Phone batteries on both phones in the boat went dead. Can this be true? It must. My husband doesn't lie about such things, plus, why would he? He's okay. He's fine. He said to go ahead and eat.

As if I'll ever eat again.

Or at least, that's how it feels right now.

And besides that, he's got a long drive home and I know he's exhausted and of course HE HAS NO PHONE BECAUSE THE BATTERY IS DEAD and no charger with him either.

Well.

He's okay. He'll be okay.

All joking aside from what I said this morning (and really, it was no joke) I can't even imagine a life without that man. Every part of my life is touched and held and protected and reflected and joined by his life.

Pure and simply, I love him.
He aggravates the hell of me sometimes, just as I know I aggravate him. From such aggravation an oyster creates the pearl and he is the pearl of my existence.
And when he isn't aggravating me, he is delighting me. He is making me laugh. He is holding out his arms to me as he has done since we first met, offering his body as shelter against all storms.

And he is who he is and that means he is going to go out into the woods in the darkness and he is going to go out onto the sea and he is going to drive down dark highways and he is going to do all of the things that make him the man I do love and I refuse to be like the woman in the Lyle Lovett song whom he tells, "If I were the man that you wanted, I would not be the man that I am."

Until I met this man, I never knew I wanted a man who hunted and fished. I would have told you that that was the LAST kind of man I wanted. He is none of the things I thought to wish for when I wished for a good man except that he is the best man I know.
He is right with himself.
And that is all right with me.

When people remark on how tall he is I sometimes say that he has to be the size he is in order to fit that heart of his in. And I know he did not wish me to worry and it probably aggravates the hell out of him that I am the sort of woman who worries so much.

Look at the size of his hands on that baby boy.
Hands that can hold a world.
They hold my world.

I am just so glad he's safe and that I can quit worrying.
Sort of.

Maybe the blood will return now to my hands and feet. Maybe my throat will open again. Maybe my eyes will quit tearing up.

Maybe I'll quit being so damn dramatic. I wouldn't bet any real money on that one, though.

But life goes on. Thank every power that be.

Now if I could just get warm.