100 Words Per Mile: Reflections - 8
Zillow. Scandoval. Escape.
Escapism manifests in all kinds of ways, both gnarly and harmless. As I mentioned in this week’s post, if I’m scrolling through Zillow, that usually means something’s up. I don’t do that nearly as much as I used to, but occasionally I catch myself.
The difference now is I don’t have to text my wife some emotional foreplay. I don’t need it anymore.
These days, I just come home and tell her exactly what I’m thinking and feeling. I’ve almost gone completely in the other direction. I wonder if she thinks it’s annoying. Maybe I’ll ask her. I’ll say this though: I’m so happy we figured out this communicating thing before we had kids.
In the years between this project and now, a little cultural thing happened that the streets called “Scandoval.” For those who aren’t familiar, I won’t bore you with the details, but in between seasons of Bravo’s Vanderpump Rules, it was revealed one of its stars, Tom Sandoval, had been cheating on his fan-favorite girlfriend Ariana with another cast member. It was an explosive news story, especially for people like my wife and me, who not only watched the show, but hosted Vanderpump Rules-themed parties.
It was also a juicy subject of conversation for my wife and I since at that point, our daughter was one and a half, and our lives had become much less scandalous than the ones we watched on TV.
When we talked about Tom’s affair, it felt like we were talking about two different things, which is what made the conversations so riveting. I was talking about escape. My wife was talking about betrayal. They were the same thing but spoken with different connotations. I found myself not defending Tom’s actions, because they were slimy, but feeling compassion for the man. He just wanted someone to understand him. But how could we?
He didn’t, and probably still doesn’t, know how to talk about what he’s feeling. He probably should’ve scrolled Zillow, let his imagination lead him to that promised land, but instead, he chose to pursue an affair. It was clear from everyone on the outside that this was not love. This was a man desperate to avoid having the hard conversation. A man too cowardly to simply breakup.
When we’re suffering in that way, we crave intimacy but don’t know how to articulate it. We think it’s our path to healing. Our suffering turns us stupid. But words, if we’re willing to work for them, can save us.
I think about my baby brother, everything he’s been through, and how he doesn’t have the words to get to the source of his escapism. He’s stuck in this cycle because he leans on action/reaction first. I think about other people I know and love, who won’t search for the right words to express themselves, choosing instead to lean on tired cliches and unfunny jokes, and who can’t see that it’s holding them back.
My wife and I had a hard day with our daughter this past weekend. It started with our mistake: we got the time for a birthday party wrong. Not a big thing, but time is still a foreign concept to a three-year-old. We went from going to the party as a family to only going with Daddy because her baby brother needed to nap. She didn’t understand. How could she?
She had a meltdown. I lost my temper. My wife got frustrated with the process as a whole.
But our words saved us. We let them get to the heart of the matter. We let them challenge what we were feeling so we could understand why we were feeling that way. My wife argued on behalf our daughter. She was right. I clarified where I was coming from. My wife met me there.
It can feel like the world is asking a lot of you at any given moment. But really, all it’s asking is you take two extra minutes. You’ll get there. Hopefully, all of us get there.