Verbal “Cutting”

Our blood runneth over.

I am so happy to be a writer on Medium. I’ve learned that I need to be diligent in producing content that is of some import to the community here. To that end, I am going to open a vein.

My husband and I have been arguing. A lot. Married a long time, our arguments have escalated over the last few years. The past ten months have been particularly difficult to navigate. He, by nature, is not a fighter. It appears that, unfortunately, I am.

Time. I’ve had way too much of it to think about things, as I was laid off from my job of fourteen years, in February 2018. I haven’t had a lick of “real work,” since.

I know Boo Hoo. “Poor me.” I should get over it. Pick myself up by my bootstraps and find another job. If only I could.

My “career” was that of an advertising copywriter. I was a damn good one, meaning I never created anything that was of any real benefit to anyone — other than the people who amassed a fortune from my ideas, and others like me. Now, it appears that, at least where advertising is concerned, I’m way past my shelf life.

I made a lot of money and now I don’t. I know: Shit happens. Deal with it.

Time. So much of it now, to sit and think and scroll through Indeed endlessly applying for jobs I’ll never have a decent shot at.

Time to work on my “screenwriting career” and wonder if my manager will ever fucking sell anything.

Time. Plenty of time to let resentments build and build and –

Don’t say it.

My husband is a good man with a good heart. I used to think I, too, had a good heart. Now I wonder.

My parents. Both of them were alcoholics who fought savagely, with gloves off and teeth bared, for as long as I can remember. Some ugly, ugly stuff went down. So bad, I used to pray they’d get divorced. I understand now that they both suffered from depression, but that wasn’t the type of thing that people talked about back then. Now, someone will “share” how many times in a day they move their bowels without blinking an eye.

No divorce. Instead, my parents stayed together for over sixty years and died within two weeks of one another of stage four lung cancer. As a matter of fact, they were both diagnosed less than two months before I found a lump in my chest. But that’s neither here nor there. A story for another time.

Don’t say it.

I share those genes. Pair “one too many” with a bad mood and I’m off to the races. Shame. On. Me.

The latest slicing and dicing between my husband and myself took place two nights ago. The particulars aren’t important — certainly not to you. I’ll just say that it was an all-encompassing maelstrom about money, his health, my jobless state and so on. The epithets were flying so fast we could hardly keep up.

Don’t say it.

And then he said something that really hurt. That did, in fact, cut like a knife. Aside from the hurt, there was disbelief, as hurting me is so unlike my husband. Typically, that’s been my territory and true to form, I gave it back in spades — spewing such venom that the very thought of those bilious words makes me sick to my stomach.

Don’t say it.

My husband and I love one another. By and large, we are a “happy couple.” And we’ve been through a lot together because…because shit happens. To everyone.

This love…the realization of it, makes these verbal stabbings all the more terrible. To deeply wound someone, you love makes no kind of sense. Ever. And once the blood flows, it’s difficult to staunch.

Since that awful night, we’ve talked it out. Told one another we “didn’t mean” the horrible things we said.

Through the years, I’ve made that declaration so many times that the thought of saying, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it,” ever again is unthinkable.

I will change. I can and I will. I’ll be a better person. The type of person who would never cut her husband into little tiny bits and then say that she “didn’t mean it.” Because at some point, this declaration, along with the attendant guilt, compounded over and over again, will end me. It’s as simple as that.

Don’t say it. Whatever you do. Please.

Why am I telling you this? So that if ever find yourself in a situation where you’re sparring with a loved one — and you will — and things get really heated, mind what you say. Learn from my mistakes. With all the other shit going on in the world, you don’t need the guilt, and neither do I. So, think it, write it down, go for a walk — do whatever it takes to avoid the cutting. Because, once the words are out, you can never take them back.

As I write this, I’m reminded of Sheryl Crow’s brilliantly poignant, “The Difficult Kind,” and these lyrics in particular:

If you could only see What love has made of me But I’ll forever be in your mind the difficult kind But you won’t see No, you won’t see the good in me But babe, I’ve changed Yes babe, I’ve changed

And so, shall I.

Sherry McGuinn is a longtime Chicago-area writer and award-winning screenwriter. Her work has appeared in The Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times and numerous other publications. Sherry’s manager is currently pitching her newest screenplay, a drama with dark, comedic overtones and inspired by a true story.

As always, thanks for reading. If you like this piece, perhaps you’ll enjoy: