Things Left Unsaid BY HOLLIS GIAMMATTEO
Some time ago, lain out on a gurney, deeply drugged, post-surgery, my wife disclosed that I had said to her in low and muffled tones, “I have so much to tell you.” How I wish that I remembered both the moment, and its specific content—a map, some treasure. More characteristic of new love, such urgency was odd, as my utterance was given over a decade in, so what had I meant, I wonder? That moment sprang to mind as I thought about love—not romantic love, or love fueled by physical desire, or parental love, or puppy love—but love as it evolves throughout what I’d call a successful marriage, one dedicated to mutual support, to the cultivation of curiosity and humor, to resilience and engagement in challenging times, to the givens of friendship and family. Between such partners, then, what remains unspoken, what left unsaid? Secrets, hopes, confessions? It sounded urgent, lying there on the gurney in my altered and expanded state. What might I regret not saying, not having said? A couple of decades in, I am a couple of decades older. I do not feel myself to be old, that is, elderly, while forced to acknowledge that I am, by many counts, older. And I find myself ashamed that the self I proffered all those years ago can no longer be sustained. I am ashamed of charmless sags, the aches that vie for my attention, the thinning skin that is a magnet for florid bruising. Shame worsens the losses. Shame is not helpful. It is as if I gave you a performative self early in our marriage, and somehow the performance, once polished, has snagged on cheap props and clumsy blocking.
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3rd Act magazine | spring 2022
This is, perhaps, the conversation we should be having, the weight of shame, its Novocain presence. As I think about it, my shame is about aging, but also about vulnerability, about my feeling, in your gaze, exposed. The more I feel myself known, the more I suffer the rawness of vulnerability and exposure. A paradox. I always thought being known was the point, the lucky charm, a resting place—striving and effort finally hung on their hooks in the tool shed. Instead, with my intimate partner, this feeling of exposure. Foibles revealed, weaknesses bared, disappointments guiltily copped to. Buddhist nun and teacher Pema Chödrön invites us by way of Samuel Beckett to “fail, fail again, fail better.” Could a component of the unsaid, the muted, have to do with not knowing how to say it? If so, then Right Speech, one of the Five Precepts in Buddhist beliefs, might be brought to bear. More often this precept is associated with content, like with not being mean, verbally abusive, and the like. Or
What, in this moment, given this conflict, or this beauty suddenly perceived, or that prickle of anxiety, what needs to be spoken? with tone—the how you say a thing being as significant as the what it is you’re saying. But I put timing up there with roses and chocolate— when to bring up a tough topic, a contentious bit of feedback, a potentially prickly observation. Some Buddhist exegeses caution against bringing up such material until the recipient is willing to hear it, and is, so to speak, receptively in the mood. This seems more an exercise of patience and restraint, which might easily slip, I imagine, into mute passivity, an avoidance of confrontation. Regardless, timing is key. What might I regret not saying, not having said? It is an impossible question! Today’s choice
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