"Recapturing"
Mar. 23rd, 2021 09:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gunwithoutmusicHastily-made plans led us down the road to my father-in-law’s house on a cold and windy Saturday evening. We had been hoping for a small gathering of our friends, but in the end, the only people that could actually make it were my husband (the event organizer) and myself.
My husband had made the plans earlier in the week, but hadn’t actually told anyone about his plans until the day before. Well, that’s not exactly true. He had told me about it earlier in the week, and there’s a not-so-small part of me that thinks that he expected me to disseminate that information to our small friend group, as that’s always been the way that things have worked before. But I was tired of being the one to go around behind him and double-check that everyone had been notified, so I resolved to keep quiet and see if he would take on the duty of both making plans and actually organizing everyone.
Since he waited until the day before, and his father lives about an hour away from everyone we know, deep in the woods where not even the internet lines reach, it was really no surprise to me to find that it would be just me and him. Still, my husband was eager; his father’s house was the perfect place to build a bonfire, which was something that he had been wanting to do for a long time.
I think that the whole bonfire idea was a plan to recapture some moment that was lost to time, to reenact his youth in an attempt to feel better about middle age, which, while not quite upon us yet, was moving toward us at what seemed like break-neck speed. He told me stories of gathering around bonfires in his father’s backyard in his early twenties, of being joined by his closest friends and his family, of drinking beers and roasting marshmallows until past midnight. He would always get that look on his face that pretty much all of us get when we look wistfully into the past and erase all of the bad memories so only the good remain.
He fell out with those friends a long time ago; they were toxic and just not very good influences on a young Autistic man that had no idea that he was on the spectrum. But it was easy for him to look back at those times and remember the laughter and the joy and forget about the pain and the heartache. I didn’t blame him; it’s easy for all of us to do that, to be so caught up in the bad feelings of the present and to look to our youth and think about how much better things were. To look at the past objectively, to remember all of the times that things were really hard and to compare them to the “hard” things of the present day and see that there is always good and bad in every moment in time... it’s not easy. It’s much easier to say “good old days” and leave it at that.
So there we were, taking the long drive to my father-in-law’s house, me vaguely wondering how long we would be out there, and him vaguely recollecting his personal “good old days,” when the rain started. The weather report had said that there was only a twenty percent chance of rain, but anyone who lives in Florida knows that any percentage chance of rain other than zero basically means one-hundred percent. Still, it wasn’t raining hard, and we were still nearly twenty minutes from the little house out in the deep woods, so we pressed on, hoping that it would blow over and we could still build our little bonfire for two.
When we finally arrived at the house, it was still raining, but only just. We walked around the misty front yard, gathering kindling and larger sticks to build the fire with. I only realized how wet it was outside when I reached up to brush my hair away from my forehead and noticed that it was soaked. But we were there, and my husband was determined to relive his past, so we worked on building the fire and making it stronger.
Despite the fact that, every ten minutes or so, we needed to retreat to the front porch to keep ourselves as close to dry as we possibly could be, we built a roaring fire and kept it going for several hours. We drank a few beers and talked about life in between tending the fire and hiding from the rain. While there were a few close calls, the fire never went out, and we were always able to get it back to a decent size. We let our wet and bone-chilled bodies dry and warm by the fire when we had the chance, and when we didn’t, we sat on the porch and wondered if the rain would put it out.
As the sky darkened to a pitch black and the clock told us that our regular bedtime was coming up, we decided to go ahead and douse the fire and head back home. I found myself wondering if my husband had found what he was searching for, but I couldn’t really believe that he had. His stories of friends and family around the bonfire, laughing and partying all night long, were so different from the experience we had, where it was just us, desperately trying to keep a fire going in the rain on a freezing cold night, and not even getting to sit by the fire for the majority of the time we were there.
I found myself a little sad for him, thinking that he had been trying so hard to recapture his youth and his “good old days,” and that the universe had seemed to really want to hammer home the lesson that you just can’t do that. The past is the past, and will always remain that way. You can’t reach back, dust off the bad times, and bring the good times back with you. You can only make new good times in the present, and appreciate what you have.
But I enjoyed myself, spending the night with him, just talking and watching the fire from a distance, which made it all the more heartbreaking to think that he was disappointed by the lesson that he had to learn that night.
When the fire was finally completely out, and all of the embers stopped glowing, we climbed back into the car and started back home. To my surprise, he said to me, “I had a wonderful time tonight; this didn’t go exactly the way I expected, but it made me really happy, anyway. We should do this again sometime, and try to get more people to come out with us. I’ll just make sure to plan a little better next time.”
My husband had made the plans earlier in the week, but hadn’t actually told anyone about his plans until the day before. Well, that’s not exactly true. He had told me about it earlier in the week, and there’s a not-so-small part of me that thinks that he expected me to disseminate that information to our small friend group, as that’s always been the way that things have worked before. But I was tired of being the one to go around behind him and double-check that everyone had been notified, so I resolved to keep quiet and see if he would take on the duty of both making plans and actually organizing everyone.
Since he waited until the day before, and his father lives about an hour away from everyone we know, deep in the woods where not even the internet lines reach, it was really no surprise to me to find that it would be just me and him. Still, my husband was eager; his father’s house was the perfect place to build a bonfire, which was something that he had been wanting to do for a long time.
I think that the whole bonfire idea was a plan to recapture some moment that was lost to time, to reenact his youth in an attempt to feel better about middle age, which, while not quite upon us yet, was moving toward us at what seemed like break-neck speed. He told me stories of gathering around bonfires in his father’s backyard in his early twenties, of being joined by his closest friends and his family, of drinking beers and roasting marshmallows until past midnight. He would always get that look on his face that pretty much all of us get when we look wistfully into the past and erase all of the bad memories so only the good remain.
He fell out with those friends a long time ago; they were toxic and just not very good influences on a young Autistic man that had no idea that he was on the spectrum. But it was easy for him to look back at those times and remember the laughter and the joy and forget about the pain and the heartache. I didn’t blame him; it’s easy for all of us to do that, to be so caught up in the bad feelings of the present and to look to our youth and think about how much better things were. To look at the past objectively, to remember all of the times that things were really hard and to compare them to the “hard” things of the present day and see that there is always good and bad in every moment in time... it’s not easy. It’s much easier to say “good old days” and leave it at that.
So there we were, taking the long drive to my father-in-law’s house, me vaguely wondering how long we would be out there, and him vaguely recollecting his personal “good old days,” when the rain started. The weather report had said that there was only a twenty percent chance of rain, but anyone who lives in Florida knows that any percentage chance of rain other than zero basically means one-hundred percent. Still, it wasn’t raining hard, and we were still nearly twenty minutes from the little house out in the deep woods, so we pressed on, hoping that it would blow over and we could still build our little bonfire for two.
When we finally arrived at the house, it was still raining, but only just. We walked around the misty front yard, gathering kindling and larger sticks to build the fire with. I only realized how wet it was outside when I reached up to brush my hair away from my forehead and noticed that it was soaked. But we were there, and my husband was determined to relive his past, so we worked on building the fire and making it stronger.
Despite the fact that, every ten minutes or so, we needed to retreat to the front porch to keep ourselves as close to dry as we possibly could be, we built a roaring fire and kept it going for several hours. We drank a few beers and talked about life in between tending the fire and hiding from the rain. While there were a few close calls, the fire never went out, and we were always able to get it back to a decent size. We let our wet and bone-chilled bodies dry and warm by the fire when we had the chance, and when we didn’t, we sat on the porch and wondered if the rain would put it out.
As the sky darkened to a pitch black and the clock told us that our regular bedtime was coming up, we decided to go ahead and douse the fire and head back home. I found myself wondering if my husband had found what he was searching for, but I couldn’t really believe that he had. His stories of friends and family around the bonfire, laughing and partying all night long, were so different from the experience we had, where it was just us, desperately trying to keep a fire going in the rain on a freezing cold night, and not even getting to sit by the fire for the majority of the time we were there.
I found myself a little sad for him, thinking that he had been trying so hard to recapture his youth and his “good old days,” and that the universe had seemed to really want to hammer home the lesson that you just can’t do that. The past is the past, and will always remain that way. You can’t reach back, dust off the bad times, and bring the good times back with you. You can only make new good times in the present, and appreciate what you have.
But I enjoyed myself, spending the night with him, just talking and watching the fire from a distance, which made it all the more heartbreaking to think that he was disappointed by the lesson that he had to learn that night.
When the fire was finally completely out, and all of the embers stopped glowing, we climbed back into the car and started back home. To my surprise, he said to me, “I had a wonderful time tonight; this didn’t go exactly the way I expected, but it made me really happy, anyway. We should do this again sometime, and try to get more people to come out with us. I’ll just make sure to plan a little better next time.”
no subject
Date: 2021-03-23 01:21 pm (UTC)Gang aft agley,.."
But in the end, it made him happy and that was the reason you were there.
This is lovely. You have a real gift for taking your readers along with you. Thank you for this lovely rainy-day outing. (I love rainy days.)
no subject
Date: 2021-03-23 01:39 pm (UTC)After we got our little teepee of kindling built, my husband doused it with lighter fluid and tossed a match in, so the whole thing went up pretty quickly, and he just looked at me and said, "And they make it seem so hard on Survivor!" It took everything in me not to give him a little smack, lol
no subject
Date: 2021-03-23 08:34 pm (UTC)I really like this - we keep going, we keep adapting, we let life come as it inevitably does, and we accept it. And when we're lucky, as you both were that night, accepting what life offers makes you happy. This is a good reminder to appreciate even the dark, rainy moments of life - sometimes, they are the times in which we find ourselves and discover what we TRULY need. <3
no subject
Date: 2021-03-23 08:52 pm (UTC)I try now to just focus on the here and now and appreciate the things I have and the times I'm living in. Looking back can be fun, but it's not good to spend too much time looking back to things you can't get back, just as it's not good to spend too much time looking ahead to things that may never come. Be here now. :)
no subject
Date: 2021-03-23 09:53 pm (UTC)The one thing I didn't see in here, which I was expecting somehow from the set-up, was any mention of Tyler's actual father participating in this whole thing! Did you drive to the house and mostly hang out in his backyard while he stayed inside the whole time? :O
no subject
Date: 2021-03-23 10:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-03-23 11:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-03-24 12:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-03-26 08:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-03-26 08:25 pm (UTC)We're actually going out to my father-in-law's house again tonight for another bonfire with some friends, and we're going to roast hot dogs and make s'mores, so it should be a lot of fun!