It was a good day and I was happy…happier than I had been in many weeks. The kids were with NH, but I didn’t feel the stress of their absence. Instead, I was content to be in the moment and leave the worries and fears on shelf. I gave myself permission to be free for a few hours. Troubles would be there when I returned.

I had hiked and I had showered. I picked up a latte for TA, a fellow mother who was incapacitated by major reconstructive ankle surgery. As my life was falling apart, I appreciated that I was a healthy, clean smelling, thoughtful friend. I even had a piping hot cup of tea for myself. I approached my friend’s front door, balanced the tea on top of the latte and used my chin to hold the two cups in place. Leaning forward with my free hand I reached for the doorbell and SWISH, the cups buckled inward towards me and scalding hot tea-water poured down my shirt. My involuntary reaction was to throw both drinks against my friend’s front door. I held in a scream. I pulled at my shirt to get the molting hot fluid as far away from my skin as possible, yet the intense burning persisted. I clutched my breast and realized that my bra had absorbed the scalding water and was holding it against my nipple and the surrounding area. The pain!

I marveled at how the hot water seemed to have hit nothing except my bra. I was thrown between fascination and excruciating pain of a burning breast. My white shorts were clean; I couldn’t feel water anywhere else on my top except in my damn bra. How did I manage that? And then I was wincing from the pain again. Breasts should never be burned. Not by the sun, cigarettes, ropes or hot tea. Never. By anything.

Thankfully, my hobbled friend did not hear the commotion, and thankfully she had a bench in her entryway where I could sit and gather myself. I seriously considered beating a hasty retreat and hiding at home, but she was expecting me. Besides, the mess I had created wasn’t going to clean up itself. She would know I had been there, and she would see that I had cracked. “Wow. She’s worse than I thought…throwing coffee cups at my front door”. I peaked at my breast – ouch – the blazing red skin around my nipple made me cringe. Would it blister? Would it scar? Great. I was going to have a deformed breast.  Would it be a badge of honor that always reminded me of how I held my cool during this insane time of life or would it be the first of many battle scars that evoked the torment and suffering of the summer of 2009?

The contents of my cup were dripping down the wall and door and pooling near the welcome mat. The latte had survived relatively unharmed, but knowing what I did about its little journey from the coffee shop to this front door, it seemed pathetic.  I sat and contemplated: sit and cry silently, slip away, knock louder on the door and ask for help or run home to get cleaning supplies and pretend this never happened. I decided to pick myself up, go back out in the world and get more hot beverages. I left the cups, the dripping, pooling mess, and texted TA about the situation:

Me: Do u want/need food? I just dumped my drink in your entry. Going to get another. Yours is safe!

TA: I’m good on food. R u coming back to join me?

Me: If you want company i can stay for a bit.

TA: Yes!!

TA: Oh, now I see the mess 😉

Me: On my way. Dont touch it!

TA: Well it’s like torture eyeing the coffee and I can’t get it!!

TA was using crutches and there was no way for her to bend down and pick up her intact drink. She had to stare at it, and the liquid disaster, through the screen door and hope I was coming back soon.

I returned, hosed down her entryway, and we settled into chairs outside in the backyard. We each had a load to share. Hers: the frustration of recovering from a serious surgery where her ankle was completely rebuilt; the agony of having her husband diagnosed with an advanced case of prostate cancer, and his surgery. Me: a husband who decided that on the eve of our eleventh wedding anniversary that the marriage was in major crisis and that he was abandoning ship. Three children, his own health scare/breakdown, a successful/failed business that came within inches of breaking the two of us, and four years of waiting…waiting for him to figure out what he wanted to do with his life; waiting for him to make a serious effort towards something; waiting for him to tell me how I could help and support him…had not deterred me from holding onto our marriage and the idea we could pick up the pieces and make a good show of it. Man, I was determined to a fault. Naïve. Afraid.

Depending on where you like to find your statistics, 50-65% of all marriages in the U.S. end in divorce. One truly has a 50/50 chance of having a “successful” marriage (I put successful in quotes because I don’t believe that a life-long marriage equals a good, happy or healthy marriage, but that’s a topic for another time). So the fact that I was in a whirlpool of turmoil in my marriage wasn’t remotely unique…and not all that interesting from the outside. We had no stories of infidelity…that I’m aware of. Neither of us is an addict. Out of control spending hadn’t driven us to financial ruin. The horror of domestic violence wasn’t our reality. We were simply faced with sorting through some very mundane, adult themes: How did our families color and shape our intimate relationships? How, as adults, do we put to rest the demons from childhood (and believe me, we each had our fair share)? Where did our connection short-out? Could we mend the damage that’s been done? Did we even want to wake up next to one another every day? In my relationship/marriage to NH, there were 18 years of inconsistent communication, the build-up of little resentments that affect intimacy, and after enough hurt I’ve had to wonder if he can be trusted with my heart. I believe, looking back, that he never trusted me with his and that he wasn’t capable. TA points out that most couples are literally one bad argument away from where NH and I find ourselves in the summer of 2009. Boy, for their sake I hope not, I think to myself.

Looking back, I now believe that we started with everything going against us. My therapist  – God bless this women, she was my life preserver on very rough waters – would say, repeatedly, that if we had been put in a room with a thousand eligible people, we still would have gravitated to one another. This is because NH’s unique set of issues coupled perfectly with mine. We were like moths drawn to what kills them, the bright light; we were destined to orbit closely and burnout. Of course, she had a more hopeful message. One filled with the possibility of healing the wounds and building a story where the gravitational pull doesn’t make the planets collide, but instead they’re able to hold a symbiotic path and actually enhance one another’s existence. And for a while she believed this.

NH is not a horrible person – although he does continue to baffle me. I like to think that I’m pretty ok, too. Yet we were unable to meet one another with complete trust and acceptance. I understand better, knowing what I do about our lives, and that’s where the heartbreak lives for me. Repairs may have – for a brief time – been possible, but we missed the opening.

The scalded nipple incident ended well. I cleaned the wall, wiped the door and watered down the tea so it wouldn’t stain the stone entry. TA and I sat on her deck, enjoyed a beautiful afternoon, and talked about the pitfalls of marriage, the frustration and joy of kids, and that (sometimes) elusive search for purpose and meaning to one’s life. We enjoyed the hot drinks, round two, without episode. And, thankfully, there was no blistering or scarring of my dear left breast.