Zen Buddhism

• I don't feel good possible food poisoning? Honestly feel like I might have eaten something that disagreed with me! Been up late vomiting too many variables. Feel light headed. Thinking about 911
• I'm really sorry.
• Tingly extreme dies
• Extremedies
• Sorry again
• What do Think?
• Panic attack? I feel so ridiculous and dehydeateds sleepy
• Still alive so obvious stress or ?
• I feel that
• Like an idiot for false alarm.
• I apologize again. Feeling better somewhat
• Hopefully just done freaking out
• Meditation was the key
• Guy
• Key to bedtime . Goodnight

These are the 15 text messages I woke up to Saturday morning, in Texas, from my husband, in Washington state.

On the way home Sunday I read Thank You for Your Service by David Finkel. I wouldn't say I enjoyed it, because it was too personal, too close to home, but I would certainly recommend it. It is very accessible, easy to read, honest and sentimental without being maudlin. He gets it. He will make you get it. Maybe. Regardless, he wrote about suicide briefings and about lessons learned.

So, lessons learned from the 15 text messages I woke up to Saturday morning:

• It is time to look into respite care for when I leave town.

Out of everything I was expecting, everything I am expecting about Karl's slow, steady decline, this was not something I expected. I did not anticipate reaching a point where I would say to Karl, "It would be helpful if you knew someone was coming to check on you," and Karl would say, "yeah, probably..."

"...can we stop talking about this?"

I said yes and we stopped talking about it. We will have to talk about it again if I want to leave town by myself again, which I do.

I have a trip planned with some girl friends in June. In June school ends and summer vacation starts and every year during summer, our kids go to Karl's parents' house for a few weeks. So the weekend I'm gone in June will be the weekend Karl takes the kids to his parents' house. I will arrange the flights. I will contact TSA to get him safely escorted through the airport. I will make sure his parents know when to pick him up. Then I will board the dogs and I will go on vacation knowing my husband is in a safe space with people who can take care of him if he needs them to. It isn't that he needs people to take care of him, he just needs to know someone has his back.

I stop writing and read Karl what I have just written, as I often do in the middle of writing or after I've posted, depending on how laborious the process is. Sometimes I need to hear what I wrote out loud to know where it's supposed to go next.

I stop after the text messages, point at my screen, say, "ha ha, Karl's dumb," and he rolls his eyes at me. I know this is what he's thinking though about what I'm writing. I finish reading him the paragraph about taking the kids to his parents and he and I look at each other. After a minute I say, "What do you think?"

"I think I'm tired of having my life on display."

I can feel my eyes growing wider, defenses clawing up my throat.

"I just feel dumb, freaking out over nothing."

My defenses have settled and I am now repeating what he's saying inside my head, recording it to write down.

"It isn't nothing," I say, "It's everything."

"Yeah, thanks, " he shakes his head, gets up, "I'm going to do dishes."

Sometimes when he talks, I start a recorder in my head, but later when I sit down to write what he has said, I have nothing to add to it. I hold these words with me, turning them over, wondering where they belong.

"It's like being a moth," he told me one day, "Once you've been inside the flame, the light doesn't look as bright from outside."

War is like Zen Buddhism he told me.

On the way to Texas last weekend I read War by Sebastian Junger. Even though I had heard the stories before, the book was very compelling. I flagged several pages with strips of a torn subscription card for Reader's Digest, because I knew Karl wanted to discuss it with me later. I also flagged things that sounded like Karl or explained Karl.

Karl is so apathetic about so much that the tiny things he cares about don't make any sense to me. Who cares if one of the kids decides not to wear a jacket when the high is in the 40s? They'll be cold, they'll survive, they'll get a jacket next time... or, more likely, they won't. It maddens Karl. He yells and argues, saying he doesn't want to hear them complain later. To be fair sometimes one of the kids won't get a jacket and will complain later, but often they don't complain at all. Karl just needs the kids to wear jackets. Our kids, being ours, see no reason to wear a jacket just to please someone else. These arguments drive me mad. Why is a 30 year old man arguing with a 5 year old about a piece of clothing?

In War, Junger explains that the soldiers he was with ream each other out for the most minor of offense, such as an untied shoelace. He explains that this is because the men are dependent on each other for survival. It is like Zen Buddhism - everything matters, nothing matters. Every tiny thing matters. All of life is distilled to the most minute details, because the things we think of as big - late mortgage payments, broken iPhone - don't affect our survival. The intricate details - having your gun properly oiled, your ammo properly set, your shoelaces tied - affect survival.

"Zen Buddhism," Karl said, "is very enlightening."

He didn't understand why I found it so funny. Duh, I said, Zen Buddhism is enlightening. That's the point.

It is about nothing, it is about everything. War, life, panic attacks. They are about nothing. They are about everything.