The Pink Elephant

My spouse and I just had a fight.

Not one of those screaming, yelling, smackdown fights that release tension and air grievances.

One of those quiet, tense, relationship breaking fights where one of you tells a painful truth…

Like acknowledging the pink elephant in the room.

Like any pink elephant, it was always in the way, but you work around it and make a way. You ignore the inconvenience and discomfort, you excuse it all to the consequences of living a blessed life (“nothing worth having…”) and patch up the muddles of its rage as quickly as you can get it out of sight… out of mind.

But, the pink elephants won’t be ignored. And now it’s standing on your chest, it won’t let you up, it won’t let you breath.

Your spouse, insists you’ll feel better once a window opens.

Still blissfully ignorant. In that way where acknowledgement begets blame, breeds guilt, brings shame, and it always has been his character to avoid those things. At all cost.

Blissfully ignorant. But, not so much bliss.

Not now. Now that I’ve opened my mouth. After months, even years of calling for help, blaming the weather, the jobs, society, our pasts. Never daring to suggest the elephant.

All the while allowing it to grow so big, become so rude, that there’s no longer breathing room.

So, in one final act of self-preservation, I pleaded with him to acknowledge the elephant in the room!

*insert dagger into mutual heart*

I don’t even know whether I should be sorry. Part of me only feels sad for the judgment of society I know is coming. Another part feels bad for the pain I know I’ve caused him for forcing his gaze upon such a hideous beast of burden. And an even guiltier part of me feels self-pity, for living with an ugly elephant in my life for so long.

And now that’s it’s over…? Is it, over?

It feels over, whether it is or not. Something that feels like mourning washing over me. Painful, but solemn.

The ignoring the elephant is over, that foundation is broken ground. That feels painful. But, maybe the pain is burning from a deeper place in me that knows there’s no going back from that.

Yeah, it’s over. Something is over.

Where do we go from here?

Stay tuned.