Eric’s Swan – Part 10

When my husband took a “swan dive into Xanadu,” as we lovingly call it these days 💦—well, you could call it a breakdown, but where’s the fun in that? And if you’re not laughing, you’re crying… am I right?

Truth be told there’s very little on God’s Green Earth that I can’t find humor in. It may take me a while to process, but once I’m on the other side of it, the laughter comes. I know, I’m avoiding the question here.

SO WHAT IN TARNATION HAPPENED?

Ok I’ll tell you. It’s been a while so I needed a warm up.

Oddly enough there was a time where all I could do was talk about it. I think because I needed to process what had happened. Say it out loud until it all made sense. It didn’t matter if it was too much, sounded crazy, or if the listening party wasn’t prepared to hear it.

No one was safe. My new employer, all my coworkers, new friends at church—if we went to lunch and you asked about my life, you were getting the whole saga. Surprisingly, I didn’t scare anyone off. (How? I still have no idea.)

That’s me, though—an open book. I’ve always been that way. If my story can help someone else, then I’ll tell it. So, I guess this blog was only a matter of time.

Speaking of time… I still haven’t told you what happened, have I?

The funny thing is, I don’t feel like telling the story anymore. Like, I’m good now. It’s in the past. It happened. It was heavy and we are all okay. More than okay.

But if you really want to hear it, buckle up. It’s a long one, and there are no CliffsNotes. I know, I know… this cliffhanger is about to run its course.

Here goes:

On August 12, 2021 my husband returned home from working on our rental property in Virginia. He walked in the door and quickly ran up the stairs telling me that he just had the weirdest experience.

Apparently, the lady at the guard shack had asked him, “When are you leaving?”

Then, without warning, he walked into the middle of the living room, dropped his shorts, and stood there in his underwear.

I stared back. Waiting for the punchline.

Waiting for him to tell me he wet his pants. Or there was a spider in his britches. Or maybe he really liked this pair of underwear and wanted me to buy more.

Instead, he said, “Can you believe the woman at the guard shack asked me when I was going to die?”

😳

Ummm what? I was dumbfounded. I assumed he had smoked some funny weed. Which was a major point of contention in our marriage and highly possible. (No pun intended. Maybe.)

I honestly don’t remember what I said. My brain was ping-ponging between his story and the countless times he’d told me about the day his dad—who was bipolar—stood in the middle of the street directing traffic in his underwear.

God rest his soul.

But Eric wasn’t bipolar. Or… was he? Was this it? Was this what was happening?

No, no, no, no, no. Hell to the no.

I don’t remember how we got from our stand off across the room to him pulling up his shorts and us deciding to watch a movie.

We tried to watch A Star Is Born, but it made him too emotional. He’s the crier in this relationship. I wear the pants. Or we both do—and at least I keep mine pulled up most of the time.

So, we switched to a comedy. Something we could watch with our 10-year-old son. (Who, thankfully, was probably off playing video games. God bless that stupid PlayStation.)

About the time Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt started their journey down the Amazon, Eric made another comment—one that made his earlier “guard shack” story sound like small talk.

This one was about two friends who had recently passed away. “They’re coming back,” he said.

I knew, and my son knew, that something was wrong.

Our son started crying. And now we had two movies we wouldn’t be rewatching anytime soon. Can we say “trigger”?

At this point, I knew it wasn’t just a case of potent weed. My man could handle his weed.

Somehow, we made it through the night. I prayed that whatever it was he just had to sleep it off.

The next morning, he seemed fine. We tried to have a normal day—swam in the backyard, went on a boat ride. Then it started again.

“What happens when you’re born?” he asked me.

🤯

I can honestly say that I’ve never asked, thought, or been asked that question, and I’m not sure how I answered it.

When we pulled up to the dock, he wanted us to hurry off the boat because we were “being shot at.”

Spoiler: we weren’t.

What now?

Thankfully, he was calm despite his obvious paranoia. And thankfully our son was able to distract himself with video games while we sat and talked upstairs. I knew I needed to do something. So I started recording our conversation and sent it to my brother and his wife.

I don’t remember the details of those recordings—probably because my brain has filed them under “trauma I’d rather not revisit.” But whatever they heard was enough to make them drop everything and drive 90 minutes from Virginia Beach to the Outer Banks.

That drive must have felt like an eternity for them. For me, though, knowing help was on the way was the lifeline I needed to keep going.

By the time they walked through the door, it was clear that this particular visit would go down in the long list of epic “remember that time when…? moments.”