'The seasons, as they ebb and flow, remind me of how my relationship with my wife had followed a similar cycle of change.' Photo: rogiro / flickr CC.
Seasonal relationship disorder?
A Friend reflects on the seasons of his life
As I peered out the window of my car whilst returning from my Quaker Meeting, I was reminded that autumn was upon us. The leaves were, in the majority, still green, but some had a yellow or orange tinge to them. The seasons, as they ebb and flow, remind me of how my relationship with my wife had followed a similar cycle of change.
The spring of my life was a season of exploration, in preparation for my summer years. I chipped away at the shell of my childhood, finally emerging in search of someone to share my life with. False starts were plentiful, as late frosts can subdue the hope of summer to come, but once the buds of attraction had bloomed in earnest, it was time to tentatively embrace the warmth of another soul. Late spring brought intense happiness, an essence of togetherness and love. Everything was good, everything was right, a perfect match it seemed.
Then came the early summer months, full of blissful days planning the future, dreaming of things to come, and collecting material to build a nest for our children. Mid-summer brought a hatching of dreams.
We became three, four, and then five – a quintet that seemed to recite well together. Exquisite joy was felt as we watched our children take their first tentative steps, their first real separation as they entered school, and nativity plays that were burnt into our souls forever. They were the apples of our eyes, and we were theirs, as they ripened into our hopes for the future.
There were some excessively hot days, which marred the experience, but we reminded ourselves that the humid toil and strife was worth it, as angelic moments overcame the thunder and lightning of parenthood. Late summer brought coolness, though, as the nights lengthened, and the time they were willing to give us naturally reduced. These fledgling preparations for leaving the nest evoked excitement and unease in equal measure within me, driven by the thought of becoming a duet once more. I had an eagerness to reclaim my soulmate, but an undefined anxiety that something was amiss.
Autumn came, and the temperature slowly declined. So intense had the nurturing process been, that we had lost our way within the turning of the seasons, and lost sight of spring – an emptiness seemed to have crept into our lives and, despite the continued presence of our children, the distance between my wife and I echoed like a desperate lost call across the darkening woods. We had forgotten how to talk, how to communicate, and I realised how much our conversations were saturated by the storms of raising our young. I tried to recapture summer in different ways, insulating us for a while against the chill, but I began to sense it was a forlorn hope. I searched for what had been lost elsewhere, although knowing it was wrong. The leaves started to fall and winter beckoned.
With it came a bitter cold snap, the sense of loss was so deep it penetrated my heart, leaving it permanently damaged. My life had changed forever, and I longed for the past. I revisited my childhood, and remembered summers that seemed to last forever, and tried to fathom why I hadn’t been able to prolong my own in the same way. The snowdrifts and children play, but my children (apart from one) are a distant reality, living in a time and place that is only accessible within my memories. The cycle of my seasons may have ended for now, but I live in hope of a return to spring. In older age, however, it is not the fresh grass I crave, the budding of desire, but simply a soulmate to guide me back to the warmth of summer past.
