No more make-believe, because I Believe

Someone pretending they are something they are not. 

That was the prompt.  From my bloggers’ writing group for this post, but also the “get off your butt and do it” prompt for a project – an entirely new blog.  I chewed on the prompt for days.  Picked it up, turned it over, set it down. Picked it up again, squinted, set it down again. 

I’ve known I had to launch this new blog for a while now.  And when I say known, I mean known.  God has talked to me exactly four times in my life, which I look at one of two ways depending on how pouty I feel.  On a grateful day, I think of how lucky I am.  People wait for God to talk to them their whole lives, and never hear Him.  On a day I’m being a baby, I think that once every decade is not exactly a relationship, and isn’t a relationship with me what God wants? That’s what all the books say anyway.

So I am clearly not a prophet.

But I can tell you what God wants; for me anyway.  He wants me to tell you a story about someone who was pretending they were something they were not.  Someone who pretended they were just like everybody else, until they got married, and with that came deep love but also scrutiny, and they couldn’t pretend anymore.

When I saw that writing prompt, I was tempted to tell you about a situation that happened recently when I really wanted to yell, “Liar liar pants on fire!” at someone, but instead I just nodded and listened (and kept a close eye on their pants) because it was so ridiculous, it was funny.  It would have been great writing material.

Or I wanted to tell you about myself; times that I have pretended I was more than I was, or less than I was, or just something different than I was. 

But that’s not what, as Eve (WALL•E; not ‘Adam and’) would say, my “directive”.

It’s so hard, because it’s not someone we can laugh at. It’s not me.  It’s my husband.  And he has ADD. 

He and I talked about this new blog and what people would think.  About him.  About me.  About us. 

It wasn’t a long conversation.  Very soon into it, he said, “Most wives wouldn’t put up with what you put up with. Or even know how to deal with it.  I mean yeah.  It will be embarrassing for me.  But what if we save someone’s marriage?”

I am the writer, and he is the one who is willing to be the main character in a real life drama, because he is kind.  And generous. And willing to be embarrassed for someone else’s sake because the stakes are that big. 

I tried to get out of it.  I searched for a novena (a Catholic prayer) for wives whose husbands have ADD. When I couldn’t find a novena I went to the big chain Christian bookstores because let’s face it; there is a Christianized version of everything in those stores.  When I couldn’t find anything there, I looked online and found nothing.  Words from Christian writers about how to deal with ADD if your child has it, yes.  But not your husband.  

God has remained very quiet about this ADD in a marriage business.  I asked Him to lead me to something like a Christian Wive’s Guide to ADD and for the fourth time in my life, He talked to me.

You do it.

My hands are sweaty just typing that because 1) I am not sure how I am supposed to quote God in a blog post and 2) it freaked me out.  I got all Moses on him and was like, “Oh! I, um, er, I think you meant someone else.  If you could just, like, magically make a book appear on my doorstep, I will read it and follow every word.  Promise!”

No. YOU.

“Someone who was pretending they were something they were not” was the prompt.  Here is the response:  My Family Has Add.

This post is, among many things, part of a writers group I belong to.  Nothing like jumping in head first.