Writing Prompt #10: Finding Your Exhale
Leaving, arriving, and learning to breathe again
“Did you know you stop breathing when you talk?”
I blink at Mindy, my counselor, and shake my head slightly. Stop breathing? I mean, yeah, I run out of breath sometimes, but—
Wait. Is that not normal?
I thought I was just, you know, kind of anxious. Like a rabbit hiding in the garden nervously munching a stalk of parsley under the tomatoes while a dog sniffs nearby.
Mindy clasps her hands in front of her and leans toward me. “You do,” she says firmly.
”You hold your breath when you talk. And then I mirror you, so I do it too.” She laughs nervously. “Can I be honest?”
I nod again.
“It’s kind of freaking me out! How do you cope with this?”
Good question. How did I cope with it? Mostly, I didn’t even realize I was doing it. Or, more to the point, I didn’t recognize my running out of air mid-sentence as something particularly out of the ordinary. I’d been doing it for years.
I used to be OK. I even won medals for competitive speech in high school. But now it was a struggle even to read my own writing out loud in front of others.
Dunno. Something just… changed.
But there’s a reason I’m here in Mindy’s office. It’s because my marriage is a minefield. I’m constantly navigating Peter, who feels like he has the world’s most fragile ego. (Although, I can think of one public figure who trumps my ex-husband in that department these days.) Not only that, but he’s volatile. He screams at me and the kids. He’s backed me into corners, trying to intimidate me. He’s shoved and hit me a few times.
That’s why I’m here. To solve Peter. To convince Mindy that if Peter would only just follow my lead and stop lying and cheating and being angry all the time, then our family would be just fine. Right? Hard stuff, but surely doable.
And if I solve Peter, well, then maybe I’ll be less of a nervous rabbit. Maybe I’ll take a few deep breaths.
* * * *
I didn’t solve Peter.
Instead, I ended our marriage and moved 2,000 miles west to Washington State, the one place I’d visited (ironically on a “second honeymoon” with Peter) that felt like home the moment I set foot there.
At the time, Peter and I were still trying to maintain a friendly detente. After I sold nearly everything my kids and I owned and packed what was left into my ‘98 Toyota Sienna, Peter set out with me to help manage the three-day drive. On the way, during a record-breaking heatwave, my van’s AC died and we drove all but six hours of a 30-hour trip sweltering.
My apartment wouldn’t be available until the next day, so we planned to spend the last night of our road trip in a hotel in Olympia. When we arrived, we pulled into a parking lot shaded by towering douglas firs. I stepped from the car, grinning wildly, and I breathed.
“Smell the air! It smells like pine!”
Peter looked at me and bobbed his head unenthusiastically. He was losing his partner of nearly 25 years. And sure, he cheated a lot. And yes, he had a secret girlfriend back in Wisconsin, but he was sad, OK? He wasn’t about to get excited over fresh air and fir trees.
But me?
I gulped in great big breaths of the freshest air I’d breathed in a long time.
And without even realizing it, I kept on breathing.
I still get anxious sometimes. I still hold my breath. But now I notice when it’s happening. And I know what it means.
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