Bagels on Mars

On this day three years ago I met the love of my life. Don’t barf. That’s something I thought I would never say or experience but on May 6, 2021, I had a date with someone from Bumble on a perfect day in Palm Springs with a very tall, very interesting man. In my journal I wrote, “and then I met Steven”. It was almost every day after that that we were together. Every week we’d check in with each other and we developed a really wonderful communication style for our relationship going forward from that practice. After a month we knew, or at least as sure as you can be after a month but I find in middle age it takes less time to sort through what you’re looking for. In my journal, I kept track of what we did, where we went if we saw any animals, and what we wore because we kept showing up in matching outfits. I just didn’t want to forget a single anything.

For our one-month anniversary, we stayed at an inn in Idylwyld, California which is about an hour's drive from Palm Springs but with a much higher elevation. We were there when Steven received a call from his dad, who told him he had pancreatic cancer. That diagnosis in later stages has no treatment. Most patients are given under a year to live. After that Steven really struggled with his mental health, and his drinking as a byproduct. I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t experience the type of agony he was in. Steven’s drinking is not like other alcoholics. In high school, he started having intrusive thoughts and then combined with catastrophic events, like being a 911 survivor, he was from the Pentagon, exacerbated with the diagnosis in 2021 as Bipolar One. He previously had not been willing to dive into therapy and psychiatry until I explained that because of my background, my mental health was very important to me and so he should similarly care for him for us to continue in our relationship. He has complex PTSD and was taking medications for nightmares because he has so many flashbacks. Unfortunately when he starts to have these scary intrusive thoughts he buys a jug of 10$ vodka and then downs it. After that, his bipolar gets triggered and he would go off his meds. This always inevitably led to him disappearing for months at a time. Thankfully I almost always knew where he was because he always eventually contacted me, and in more than one case I was called because I’ve been his emergency contact. I have only ever met a few alcoholics like this but all of them are in recovery. I believed in his ability to be sober and with my help he began going through a very stable time.

And he did it! After he was sober for over a year with two days' notice we decided to elope to Las Vegas, I contacted my family and he chose not to tell his family. His mother, sister, and brother are very close to his ex-wife, including having family vacations with her and their son but excluding Steven and this made him deeply uncomfortable. He tried multiple times to connect with his family and friends during this long period of sobriety but he assumed he had burnt his bridges.

We had the happiest wedding day I could imagine. If you’ve read the previous posts you know that after we caught covid in Las Vegas everything started going downhill. 

During my husband’s ensuing psychotic break, which incidentally began around this time last year, he terrorized my family and me for months. My father and I tried contacting his family but they had no interest in helping and I also lost several  close friends. It’s very difficult to be a good anything when you’re in the middle of a catastrophic event. I feel so grateful to my parents for their support for us both, but also their willingness to forgive Steven for his actions. 

On our third anniversary, I can truly say that Steven is the bravest man I have ever met. I can also say that I meant it, I meant for better or worse and sickness and in health. I have gotten quite a few conversation with his people, and mine, who think I should just leave Steven, as a new quadriplegic, who is still fighting for his life. No person is the same after a catastrophic event and no one can tell you what they would do and anyone who’s married or is considering being married needs to really feel solid about their vows, thankfully for us both I did. 

I don’t need to make a list of the things I love about my husband because I married him. I know how special he is and that doesn’t change just because his physical capacities are different. Strength doesn’t come from physical capacities, it comes from indomitable will (Gandhi) and that’s something we both have. Our one-year plan this year is us both to work on our health and start working towards rebuilding a new life and then be able to find a living situation where we can be together, sitting on porches watching the birds at sunset