Allowing Love

I'm wrapped up in a blanket. I’m drinking tea in the grassy slope in my parents backyard. Its 11am on a Thursday, the third Thursday in a row that I've been ripped apart with a Lyme disease flare up. I think I might explode with grief, so I run upstairs and type an email to Ann, a dear friend in Wisconsin who for over twenty years has suffered the loss of her husband’s health after he fell from a ladder.

I write:

My biggest anxiety is about Nathan. I worry how disappointing everything is. We are canceling the Kansas City trip for Christine’s wedding. Everything is a struggle: I drove home from camping on Wesley’s land at 2am because my hip hurt, we can’t bike because my hip and feet hurt, we don’t go to shows because they are too loud for me.

I tear up thinking, thinking, thinking about what my bad health means for us. Making plans feels impossible. Even Saturday night plans. I worry how much this will take from us. There will be no farm, no babies, no traveling to New Mexico, no joy. 

I feel better after I send the email. I take a nap and head home.

When I open the door, Nathan is chopping onions at the kitchen counter. He’s worked a long day at the farm, and his skin has broken out in hives from an allergy. I rub his back and put on the kettle.

For most of the years I've been sick, I’ve burdened myself with premeditated anxieties about how might bad health would totally destroy all chances at finding a lifelong partner. And I honestly think a lot of those worries manifested in a lot of clumsy, guarded relationships in which I spent more time evaluating if I thought the person could handle me, than just allowing them to love me. It turns out this a a very exhausting way to open your heart up to someone again and again, and it didn't really give anyone a fair shot at trying it out with someone with a complex chronic illness. 

Just before Nathan and I started spending time together, I was at a coffee shop with a friend telling her about my serial dating disasters. I was really burned out. She listened, and by the end of our time together I made a commitment to myself: I'll be single the rest of my life if it means never, ever compromising or apologizing for who I am. Illness included. All of it. I'm going to let someone love me in all my imperfections. 

Nathan puts down the knife to wrap his arms around me. He smells like cumin and soap. I love that no matter how matter how many groaning texts I've sent him that day, he greets me with the same loving, smiley welcome.  Every time he's showing me that it's me walking through the door, it's me who makes his eyes crinkle up with joy, it's me inside this weary, broken body. And it turns out that me is pretty great. 

We eat dinner, fold laundry, and a response from Ann pops up on my phone:

My first reaction? Let Nathan love you.  I'm sure there were times when Dave wished he weren't affecting me so. But would I have wanted to be away from him, not by his side? NO.  The only place I ever wanted to be was near him- sick or not, limited or not.  Dave always gave me space to do the things that were important to me (think Africa, working, etc...) but truthfully, I was always happier being where he was rather than away from him. 

When I read her response, I notice Nathan's leg is draped over mine as we sort the t-shirts. It's this kind of unnecessarily close way we are always folding ourselves over each other that tell me, yes, Ann is right. All we want is to be side by side. We are impossibly happy despite terrible circumstances.  Is the illness to thank for our bond? It hardly feels like a fair trade. But I know that I couldn't have let anyone in on my life had I not made myself the promise at that coffee shop years ago, to be loved exactly as I am.