Burn and Crash

I’ve been married twice. My first marriage left me with invisible scars. While my ex-husband was a wonderful friend to all, our marriage had its faults. Thus the EX part. Some scars came from verbal abuse. I am, by nature, a klutz. I bump into things; I drop stuff, and most of these problems come from my poor depth perception, not for lack of paying attention. Because of this, I have broken a lot of things I care for and just stuff around the house. By the end of my first marriage, my ex would yell at me to pay attention better, because that is what he blamed me for dropping and breaking our belongings. Either a fight would ensue because I do not handle being yelled at very well, or I would begin to apologize and clean up the mess before he even said something to me. 

That marriage didn’t last. However, the poor depth perception still lingers. 

When my husband and I moved in together, I did a lot of the cooking. I don’t know why he subjected himself to that torture, but he did. Maybe he felt like he was doing penance for his transgression while deployed, or something he did in his past life. But whatever the case may be, he never complained. 

One evening I was cooking. Things were going smoothly. I hadn’t messed up anything. I didn’t attempt to chop off one of my fingers while dicing veggies. And I hadn’t burned whatever the protein was. I don’t remember what I cooked that night, but I remember the timer going off. This is key because once the time went off, I lifted the lid to check on the food. Now I didn’t grab a pot holder because I was used to my old pots and pans that had silicone knobs at the top. This pan did not. It had a metal knob that was hot. It burned my hand, and I dropped it. The lid, made of glass, shattered into a million pieces. 

I was frantic. We had only lived together for a few months, and these pots and pans were new. I started looking for a broom to clean up the mess and was already apologizing before he came into the room.

“Alex, stop.” He said, kneeling down next to me. 

I didn’t stop. I was trying to clean up the mess, and he lifted me off the ground. He took my hand and looked at it. “What happened? Are you okay?”

I felt scared to look at him and focused on the floor. “I grabbed the lid, and it burned me. I’m sorry for breaking the lid.”

“I don’t care about the lid. Are you okay?”

I finally stopped and made eye contact with him.

“Why do you look so scared?” He asked me. 

I’m not sure what was running through my head, but the words just came out. “You’re not going to yell at me?”

Now he looked confused. “Why would I yell at you? Accidents happen. We can get a new lid. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

After we took care of my hand, I explained everything to him about my ex.

It’s strange that even after eight years, I can still feel that moment so intensely. Writing it out gave me a wave of anxiety, but the love I felt in that moment quickly washed away. I knew I loved him before that moment. But that was the moment I knew I wanted to be with him forever. He made me feel safe. He made me feel cared about and seen. I knew then he’d be the person to help me heal from my invisible scars.