He Should Have Read It

Story contains foul language

“Got a pen?” he asked, waving a blue spiral notebook just inches in front of my face.

“On my desk.” 

“Can you fucking get it?” 

“You’re literally standing right next to it.” 

Reluctantly, he picks up the pen and waves it at me as well. “Aren’t you going to ask why I fucking need it?” 

“I’m assuming you have something to write down in your notebook.” 

“Not a notebook, a fucking journal. The fucking stupid therapist is making me keep a gratitude journal for a week. You’re the writer in the family, why don’t you just do it for me?” 

“Well, then it would be my gratitude journal, and I doubt it will give you the intended benefit.”

“I’m grateful. She thinks I’m not, but what the fuck does she know?” 

“She has a name.”

“So?”

“Never mind.” 

“See? You always fucking do that. Maybe if you would have a normal conversation with me once and a while, I wouldn’t need a therapist. You’re always dismissing me like I don’t fucking matter.” 

“Please stop saying fucking.”

“Why?” 

“You’re an intelligent man and the overuse of profanity makes you sound ignorant, that’s why.” 

“So, now I’m ignorant? Thanks a lot, really, thanks for telling me what you fucking think of me, as if I didn’t already know.” 

I gave up and let him storm off with his blue spiral notebook, and my pen. I can only hope and pray he writes in that journal. However, I hear him slam the notebook down on the kitchen table, where it remains for the next six days. 

I wait for him to leave for work before I pick up the blue spiral and flip the cover open, revealing two words haphazardly scrawled at the top of the first page; “Fuck This.” I tear the paper free from the wire spiral binding and toss it. With tear-filled eyes, I take the pen and notebook back to my desk and begin to journal an entire week of gratitude in one afternoon.

Day 1:

I am grateful for my husband’s gorgeous green eyes, for when I look into them, I see the man I fell in love with, dormant but still present. He’s still in there somewhere; the warm, loving, generous, intelligent being who won my heart over thirty years ago. I am grateful for the love I know because of him. 

Day 2: 

Today, I am especially grateful for those moments when my husband shares his feelings with me. Although his negativity is always taxing on my own mental health, listening to his concerns is so much better than the days when he suppresses them in favor of acting out. I would much rather we sit together on the deck with an evening cocktail and discuss the unbearable heat, high cost of living, ridiculous posts on Facebook, stupid fucking co-workers {all of them}, traffic, overcrowding, and his personal opinions on current events in politics, than have him remain eerily silent until he erupts. I am grateful he is not physically abusive, although the mental anguish from his constant negativity can be debilitating. Still, I feel blessed to have the wherewithal to process it and not claim it as my own. 

Day 3: 

I am truly grateful for the household chores my husband does, even after coming home from a hard day at work. He may verbally express his disgust as he takes out the trash or mops the floor as he believes those tasks should have already been completed by me, or our son. It matters not why he does the chores, but the relief my arthritic joints feel when I do not have to do them myself. I try to express my genuine thanks, but there are always conditions and judgments. I am grateful to have learned over the past few years not to feel guilty for what I fail to accomplish, but to feel accomplished for what I am able to achieve. Today, I am grateful for the load of laundry my husband brought in from the garage where we keep our washer and dryer; he needed clean underwear. 

Day 4: 

As I look around, I cannot help but to feel blessed to have a nice home; modest, cozy and affordable. I can overlook the myriads of home improvement projects that have been started and will likely remain incomplete. I don’t even mind those which will continue to be ignored in favor of watching a YouTube video instead; watching someone else repair a fence is the same as repairing yours, isn’t it? 

Our local news covered the rising cost of insurance in our state, and many families are struggling to meet the high cost of their premiums, as are we. However, a strategically planned refinance when interest rates were more than favorable has kept our monthly financial obligations from becoming overwhelming. I am truly grateful for my working knowledge of real estate and finance. I’ve been reminded to be grateful for my husband's weekly paycheck, and I am. However, the rising costs of absolutely everything requires some creative budgeting and critical thinking, making me equally as grateful for my education. 

Day 5: 

I am grateful for a full freezer and a stocked pantry. As long as I can pluck a two-dollar box of pasta from the shelf, no one will go hungry. I do wish my husband would try harder to stick to our weekly grocery budget and not stop at the store several times a week to pick up snacks for himself, squirreling them away in the bedroom as if someone were going to deny him the pleasure of a bag of chips, or a box of cookies. Each time that extra money is spent on indulgences for one, I have to make adjustments elsewhere to feed us all. I am grateful each night when there is food on the table; enough to nourish and satisfy all three people living in this house. I am always grateful for a little extra money from my Ebay side-hustle so we can keep that freezer full, and the pantry stocked. 

Day 6: 

I am grateful for the quiet at night. I love sitting on the back deck, enjoying our once very rural neighborhood, which of late has transfigured into a more suburban setting. Still, it is a pleasant atmosphere, despite my husband's complaints regarding the occasional loud vehicle, radio, barking dog, or screaming children. I try to remind him that other families live in the neighborhood as well, and not everyone can be quiet at all times. He reminds me that we chose this particular location for the peace and quiet that was supposed to come with rural living. I sympathize with his frustration, but growth is always inevitable, and there is no way to outrun it. We are fortunate to have found a home with a large yard and good neighbors. Eventually, the loud car passes by the dog stops barking and the screaming children are called in for dinner. No need to dwell on small nuisances we cannot control. 

Day 7: 

I am most grateful for my son, Nick, for without his compassion and tolerance, I would not survive the bad days. Those days when my body decides to betray me and my joints ache just sitting in my chair. The days when worry turns to fear as I run through worst case scenarios in my mind, slowly torturing myself into madness. The days when I need someone to talk to and find myself alone. My son has grown into a loving, compassionate, generous man, despite his own challenges with mental illness. I often wonder about the concept of nature versus nurture. 

My son and I have wonderful, intelligent and interesting conversations about books, movies, current events and of course his father; my husband. Nick is the only one who understands, the only one who is permitted to have an opinion, as no one else sees what we see, and feels the way we do. My husband thinks Nick should be more like him and work a traditional job instead of trying to build his own business. I am grateful for Nick’s creativity and tenacity. My husband wants Nick to do more house chores, but I am blessed with a son who does anything I ask of him. I feel blessed when Nick hands me a cup of freshly brewed coffee in the middle of the day for no other reason than a kind gesture.

 My husband becomes frustrated and angry when Nick does not show interest in his father’s narrow-minded life; however, I am grateful for his respect and for his friendship. I don’t have much of either these days, so thank God for my son. I will always remain grateful for the man I chose to have a child with, that wonderful man who spent countless hours building swing sets and treehouses, baiting hooks and fixing broken toys. That loving man who cried with me at Nick’s preschool graduation and laughed with me at Nick’s first school play. The very same man who gifted Nick his gorgeous green eyes; the same eyes I love to look into and search for the man I fell in love with. I know he’s still in there somewhere. 

I could have written so much more, but I chose to close the notebook and place it back on the kitchen table. I’ll tell him I have changed my mind, offering it to my husband tonight when he goes back to his therapist, and pray he reads what I have written. 

He does not.

He sits reluctantly in the therapist's office, waiting for her to read through his gratitude journal, trusting I wrote on his behalf.

I did not. 

She asked, “Are you grateful for your wife?” 

His cheeks flush with embarrassment, “Well, sure.” he answers out of pure obligation. “I just wish she was grateful for me.” 

His therapist remained silent, handing the blue spiral notebook back to him.