There are many references to caves in literature, usually as a metaphor for life and it's many analyses and realizations. As I sat on my couch this Christmas morning, waiting for my ex-husband to return my children, the house was quiet around me and the dog's head was a comforting warmth on my lap. I began to reflect on my own personal cave metaphor, and how good it felt to be free of it.
At the beginning of our relationship, my ex-husband and I went to Point Pleasant one summer night and talked for hours on a bench on the boardwalk. It was exciting and new, and with the ocean before us and the vitality of life all around us, I couldn't imagine being anywhere else than on that bench with him.
I imagine that bench in my cave set against a rock wall, hard, rigid wood underneath me and unyielding metal holding it all together.
When we were married two years later, we settled into our new home with its neutral walls and bland furnishings and brought that metaphorical bench with us. My son, from a previous relationship, fit just right on the bench beside us. As time went by, we relied on that bench to hold us up and keep us together through life's adventures and mishaps. Soon I realized I would need to look for some sturdy rocks to fortify our bench.
My daughter was born that year, and I found that I was placing more and more rocks around us as the days and months went by. When he owed gambling money on a bet gone bad and had to race to his mother's house to borrow hundreds of dollars, I quietly set a rock in place. When his temper grew out of control and he would cry uncontrollably, I brought him to a psychiatrist and I dutifully laid down several more rocks.
Eventually the rocks formed a wall, and after I made that wall, I made another one. To fortify our relationship? Or to keep others from seeing what was happening on our little bench?
After the first overdose, a mix of tranquilizers and alcohol with sleeping pills, I not only strengthened the three walls that I had built but I also began to construct the fourth wall.There were no windows and very little fresh air. When he would come home from work reeking of alcohol and stumbling to the bedroom, I would protest but immediately back down in the face of his temper. More rocks were added, with a touch of cement so that no one could see through the cracks.
There was enough room in one corner of the cave for my children and I to slip out now and again and shop, or ride bikes, or visit my family. We would return quickly, though, and I would make sure that the rocks were still tightly packed before hiding us all behind them again. When my third child entered the world, I brought him out of the cave with us, as well.
Through the ensuing years, every time I put him to bed or declined a rare invitation to be somewhere, not only did the rock wall grow, but so did my resentment. Every time I had to bring him to the ER for taking too much of something, or listen to him complain about my family, my increasingly infrequent visits with friends, or how much he hated people in general, my resentment festered.
What had happened to the man I first sat on that bench with? The one who now huddled in the cave, keeping the stone walls around him like a blanket?
By the time he had begun an addiction to painkillers, I had begun to look for a way out of the cave. I knew that my children and I weren't safe in there anymore, and as I pushed at the walls of rock, cement crumbled and tiny bits of light peeked through. We would leave the cave more and more often, leaving him to sleep or hide, depending on the substance he was taking. Not only was he taking more and more painkillers, but he was also hooked on strong sleeping pills prescribed by his psychiatrist. The bench had become too small for all of us, and eventually the wood warped and cracked and the metal bent.
The day he put two of my children in the car and drove high with them was the day that I demolished my self-imposed cave and beat through the smothering walls with my bare hands. No longer was I going to hide in there with him, wondering what life could be. As more and more light shone down on me and my children, I felt myself coming to life. We left that cave and never looked back.
I found my children and I a new place, not a cave but a haven. The walls are painted brightly, friends are welcome to come in and out, and the four of us have discovered how excellent being free of the cave is. Never again will I barricade myself behind rock walls; instead, I let the breeze blow freely through open windows, the sun beam through the curtains, and my own personal light shine like a beacon.
Life is good.
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