I’m writing this from a hospital bed.
Day five.
It’s 6:53 in the morning, and strangely enough, I actually slept last night.
My doctor has been giving me Xanax to help me sleep, which I’ve appreciated because I’ve probably averaged four hours of sleep a night since my knee replacement eight weeks ago.
Now I’m back in the hospital because the knee got infected.
I’ve had another surgery. I have a PICC line in my arm. I’m looking at six weeks of IV antibiotics and potentially months of oral antibiotics after that.
This isn’t exactly where I expected to be right now.
But something interesting has happened here.
I’ve been taken care of.
Someone makes my meals.
Someone brings my medication.
People come into my room and check my vitals.
They ask how I’m doing.
My job is basically to sleep, eat, watch television, heal and allow people to take care of me.
And that’s a rarity for me.
I’ve spent most of my life being the one who takes care of things.
The provider.
The fixer.
The problem solver.
The guy who figures it out.
Even lying here, part of me wants to work.
But I haven’t done much.
I’ve slept.
I’ve napped.
I’ve watched TV.
I’ve rested.
And I’m beginning to wonder if maybe there is something here for me that I haven’t been very good at receiving.
Care.
At the same time, JJ is at our new house busting her ass trying to put everything together.
She’s exhausted.
She’s scared.
She’s worn out.
And when she gets exhausted, sometimes that comes out as anger.
I’m trying not to take it personally.
I’m trying to have compassion for what she’s going through while also learning something that has been incredibly difficult for me:
How do I love someone without abandoning myself?
For much of my relationship, when someone I loved was hurting, I felt responsible for making the hurt go away.
If JJ was angry, I wanted to fix it.
If she was disappointed, some part of me immediately wondered what I had done wrong.
If she was hurting, I wanted to make her feel better.
Somewhere along the way, caring about another person’s feelings became confused with being responsible for them.
I’m trying to change that now.
But I’m discovering another problem.
When I try really hard not to collapse into someone else’s emotions, I can become stoic.
Rigid.
Almost hard.
It’s like I’m holding onto myself so tightly that nobody can get close enough to take me away from me again.
And I don’t think that’s freedom either.
A few days ago JJ told me that what she has always wanted from me is presence.
What I’ve wanted from her is kindness.
Now we’re separating after almost 27 years together, living in this strange in-between place where we love each other and don’t know what our relationship will eventually become.
The other night she told me she had wanted to cry and wished somebody would just hold her.
I told her:
“You could have crawled into bed with me. I would have held you.”
She said:
“I don’t trust myself around you.”
I understood.
Because there’s still love here.
There’s history here.
There’s attraction here.
There’s almost three decades of attachment here.
And neither one of us wants tenderness to become a promise we’re not prepared to make.
But I’ve been sitting with something since that conversation.
Holding her doesn’t necessarily mean choosing the marriage.
Maybe it can simply mean:
I see you.
I know you’re hurting.
I love you.
Come here.
I’ve got you.
And maybe I don’t have to fix anything after that.
That’s difficult for me.
Because I’m realizing that I’ve spent a lot of my life believing there were only two choices.
Collapse or disconnect.
Fix everything or walk away.
Give myself away or build a wall around myself.
I’m beginning to see another possibility.
I can remain completely myself while remaining completely present with you.
That landed hard for me.
Because kindness without boundaries can become self-abandonment.
But boundaries without tenderness can become armor.
Maybe kindness with boundaries is strength.
Maybe that’s the man I’m trying to become.
There’s another place I’m confronting this right now.
My body.
I’m looking down at a swollen right leg that’s already atrophied from two surgeries.
My left calf has atrophy.
My shoulder has been limiting my lifting.
I’ve got this PICC line sticking out of my arm that I can’t get wet and don’t want to sweat all over.
And part of my brain is going:
My physique is going to shit.
That’s the truth.
I’m 65 years old, lying in a hospital bed fighting an infection around a knee replacement, and I’m worried about getting soft.
There’s probably something worth looking at there.
My instinct is immediately to take control again.
Clean up the diet.
Get back on protocol.
Figure out what I can take.
Figure out what I can do.
Fix the body.
Control the outcome.
Do something.
And maybe right now my body is asking me to do the exact opposite.
Let it be cared for.
Let it heal.
That doesn’t come naturally to me.
And then there’s something else happening that I almost missed.
Men are reaching out to me.
Adam.
Barry.
Men I’ve known for years.
Some I’ve met. Some I haven’t.
Guys checking on me.
Talking to me.
Showing me love.
And when I noticed it this morning, I said something very simple:
It feels good in my body.
I’ve been wanting more brotherhood in my life.
I’ve been talking about building a tribe of men around me.
And maybe part of brotherhood isn’t just having men around when I’m strong, successful, working, coaching and leading.
Maybe it’s allowing them to see me here.
Hospital gown.
PICC line.
Drugged up on oxycodone.
Marriage uncertain.
Business uncertain.
Body temporarily broken down.
Not knowing exactly what happens next.
And still worthy of being loved.
That’s new for me.
Looking back at what I wrote this morning, I realized the same question is showing up everywhere.
With JJ:
Can I give and receive love without losing myself?
With my body:
Can I receive care without immediately trying to regain control?
With these men:
Can I receive support without needing to be the one providing it?
Maybe that’s what these five days in the hospital have actually been about.
Five days ago this felt like another setback.
Another surgery.
Another problem to solve.
Another thing life was doing to me.
This morning I’m not so sure.
I don’t know whether things happen for us. I don’t pretend to understand God’s plan well enough to make that claim.
But I know I’m being shown something here.
I’ve spent years taking care of people.
Providing.
Fixing.
Carrying.
Figuring things out.
Maybe becoming the next version of me isn’t about figuring out how quickly I can get back to being that man.
Maybe it’s learning that I don’t have to carry everything alone.
And maybe the middle ground I’ve been looking for is much simpler than I’ve made it:
I can remain open without abandoning myself.
I’m not very good at it yet.
But I’m beginning to see it.
And for today, maybe that’s enough.
Colin F. Watson