“Do you want to stand out? Then step down. Be a servant… if you’re content to simply be yourself, your life will count for plenty.” – The Message

This is from a Bible passage¹ we discussed at my small group at church last Tuesday, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. It came at the end of a Gospel verse about being true to yourself, and not being showy or giving in to ego games in your faith, your work, your life.

I am afflicted by the same fear all memoirists are afflicted by: the fear of the consequences of writing about your real life. If you say The Thing, buildings will fall and civilizations will end and families will be torn to pieces and so on.

That fear is strong, and yet we all know how it feels – you don’t have to be a writer to know this feeling – to say a watered down version of The Thing. When we do this, we feel a sense of quiet discontent. “Hm, that’s close, but not quite the actual truth.” This could be in conversation with a friend. Or your mother. Or your coworker. You set out aiming to say how things really are but you land just about 10 feet to the left.

Here’s The Thing: my husband got the wind knocked out of him while trying to transition to living in America this last year and a half. This phase of our lives has been kind of a shitshow. His having the wind knocked out of him then knocked the wind out of me. Total shitshow.

And then because he was lying flat on the floor trying to catch his breath, he wasn’t able to scrub mold from the shower curtain or host dinner parties or take the car to the mechanic when it was making a rattling noise. Or engage in the deep and searching conversations I wanted to have with him about the future, our vision for life, our friends, our families, our money, how life should look, how the apartment should be set up, and other little things like that.

A creeping sense of fear settled in around my heart and pervaded my day to day. When would I get my husband back?

I’m telling this story in the past tense, but I don’t know why – it’s in the present. Let me try again: A creeping sense of fear has settled in lately around my heart and is pervading my day to day. When will I get my husband back?

Perhaps we slip into past tense instinctively in our story telling because it feels safer.

“This crazy thing happened last year, isn’t that nuts, haha! But all good now!”

Such is the message I’m permanently tempted to share with everyone, starting with myself (the most tempting person of all to lie to). Then with my sisters, my friends, and of course you, my lovely reading community.

Everything is easier to tell when packaged up safely in past tense. In fact, we actively seem to want to tell about difficult times in the past. Everyone’s always shouting that these past difficult times make us stronger, or something. But why does it feel like if we are having a hard time in the present tense, there must be something wrong with us?

I, like all of us, fall into the trap of thinking I need to be all buttoned up for the show. The show of my life. The show of my day. The show of this post. The show at work. The show at home.

I don’t feel very buttoned up right now. I thought I’d let you know, and somehow, it’s a relief.

If you’re content to just be yourself, your life will count for plenty.

I’ve been living with this fear, and it’s been hard. My husband could see how things were spiraling downward for me, and he felt really bad about that, and he wanted to help, but it was really hard for him to help from his perch on the floor.

So he started bringing me small gifts from Whole Foods, which is where he’s working right now. One day, some chocolate chip walnut cookies showed up innocently on the kitchen table. I scarfed them down. They were delicious. The next day, some pecan pie. The next day, some gorgeous, overly huge white lilies, which even now as I write this are brightening up our dining table.

Next day, a Fiddlehead IPA that he knows I like. (Presumably not from Whole Foods but from the liquor shop he walks past on his way home.)

I know that gift giving is one of his love languages. If you’re content to just be yourself, your life will count for plenty. He is doing everything he can for me, and he is trying to be himself. In the evenings he wraps me in his arms on the couch and we sit there quietly, staring out the window at the winking Christmas lights strung up on the big yellow house across the street, and not saying anything. Waiting to breathe easier, and critically, being together in the waiting.

And I understand what he’s trying to tell me with the cookies and flowers and quiet moments. He loves me, he’s on the floor, he’s sorry, we’ll get through this, and in the meantime, will I accept these chocolate chip walnut cookies as a small peace offering? Perhaps not enough, but will I eat them anyway? Could he make me a cup of chai tea to go with that?

Some days I do accept them. I feel tender and soft and bruised, thinking of all that he has gone through in the past couple of years since the pandemic. Other days I don’t accept them. I feel tender and soft and bruised, thinking of all that I have gone through in the past couple of years since the pandemic. On those days, I fling my anger at him and whip it around in our small apartment until it poisons the air we breathe. It’s up and down (in the present tense).

He’s being the real him when he’s doing what he can for me, day in and day out. And I’m being the real me when I’m doing what I can for him, which is bringing patience and love back in. I’m also being the real me when I’m honest about how things are.

Sometimes these things are not grand or even visible to anyone other than the two of us.

Do you want to stand out? Then step down. Be a servant.

Our life will count for plenty.

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¹ From The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language.