Surviving Narcissism Exploring life after marriage to a narcissist. Learning and thriving by sharing our story. – Jesse Blayne

We moved, you know.  We packed up all our stuff and headed 90 miles west.  We’ve been here three and a half months now.  Everything is put away.  We are finding a groove.  We are recreating our old schedule in these new, much larger digs.

We even survived the holidays in this new place.

Barely.

A couple weeks before Christmas I was working on a homemade gift that needed to be finished and mailed.  I had to have some purple embroidery floss.  That’s when the craziness began, or I should say, the craziness got a little crazier.

I looked through all of Jen’s craft cubbies.  Three times.  Jen looked through her craft cubbies, twice.  Even Will browsed through the craft area, narrowly avoiding being dusted by glitter.

Every member of this house looked for the plastic container holding the chromatically organized twists of embroidery floss.

I may have asked the dogs to get off their furry butts and look for the floss.

I may have threatened to withhold dinner until the floss was located.

I may have yelled at the cats for not doing their parts.

And still, no floss.

I succumbed to buying some purple embroidery floss so I could finish the project and get it in the mail in time for Christmas.

Since then, I’ve kept an eye out for the segmented see-through container holding the floss that Jen had organized into a loose representation of ROYGBIV.  Each time I walked downstairs to change laundry loads, I felt a hunch that tried to direct me in the location of the floss.

I would look, and come up short.

While stirring spaghetti sauce, I’d try to picture the last time I saw the floss, or recreate the last project made with colored threads.

When driving home from town, listening to new country music on each of seven different stations, I’d complain about how country music has changed and mention the missing floss.  (If I’m crabby, I might as well lump together all the stuff I have to be crabby about.)

While searching for fabric in the converted oak buffet that was probably built to house dishes but now houses sorted piles of fabric scraps, glue sticks, and crocks full of buttons, I more than half expected to move a pile of fabric and discover the box of floss – even though I’d pulled everything out of that buffet before Christmas.  Twice.

__________

Christmas is now two weeks gone, the outdoor lights are finally down, the rejected gifts exchanged, and I don’t need any embroidery floss for a current project, yet I still wonder where it is hiding.

Part of me worries that the missing floss represents the inevitable downward slide of my now middle-aged brain.  Soon I’ll be forgetting to turn off a burner, wondering where I left the car keys, and asking Will where he got that cool camouflage backpack that I bought him for Christmas.

The other part of me worries that the missing floss is a sign of my inability to deal with stress.  Let’s face it, stress – and its resulting health effects – can take a toll.  Even though this new chapter is a good one, it hasn’t been a cake walk getting to this new groove.

I’ve gone to bed and asked for a dream that might tell me where to find the floss.

I’ve served up chocolate milky the next morning and asked Jen if she dreamt of the missing container of floss.

I don’t ask Will very often about the floss.  As it is, he’s not convinced I’m still holding on to all my marbles.  Blame it on his 17ness or my inability to effectively relate to his 17ness, but he has bigger fish to fry than helping his mom find some colored string for doing, “What?”

What is my fixation on this floss, you might be wondering?  What is the big deal?

I can’t tell you.  I don’t know.

 __________

Today I found the floss. 

Apparently my intuition was on holiday, because I didn’t receive the slightest whisper of a warning telling me that I was about to happen upon the plastic box.  The Universe didn’t encourage me with, “Oh, you’re getting hotter!  Oh!  Now you’re burning!!”

Nothing.

I had no clue I was about to stumble upon this box that had turned into some kind of dusty, plastic Holy Grail.

I moved a stack of baskets that had been setting atop a bookshelf.  We’d moved the bookshelf two weeks ago.  The homeless baskets had been waiting for me to find them a new home.  I’ve walked by them several times a day.  I’d look at them and think to myself, “I’ve got to find a new place for those baskets.”  And then I’d go to change loads of laundry and forget about the baskets.  Two days ago, I came up with a new place for the baskets, and yet I still hadn’t managed to move them, until today.  (Lest you be thinking that we’ve been tripping over these baskets for two weeks, I will tell you they’ve been living in the basement, and we’re hardly down there unless I’m giving laundry instructions, or trying to find the floss.)

So today, for some reason, was the day to relocate the baskets.  I picked up the top of the stacked baskets to empty its contents.  When I did, I discovered the box of embroidery floss.

Just. Like. That.

Now you’re probably thinking that there were trumpets blaring and angels singing and birds fluttering because … well … that’s what I expected.  I ran upstairs, narrowly missing a cat who couldn’t have cared less about the floss, to hold the box over my head and yell, “Ta DA!!!”  and wait for the inevitable applause.

Jen and Will were outside.

The rejoicing would have to wait.

I placed the box on the center of the dining room table, where it was surrounded by stacks of mail, homeschool clipboards, playing cards and the other cat, but that doesn’t explain why, when I asked Will if he noticed anything on the table, he said, “A letter from National Geographic for Jenny?”  And, yes, my feelings were a bit hurt, because that damn embroidery floss was pretty important to me.  So I said, “No.  Keep looking.”  And he said, “Oh, hey.  That’s the box of string, isn’t it.”

And that was it.

And so Jen came in, and she had the nerve to walk right by the dining room table and not even notice the plastic Holy Grail.  So, as she sat on her favorite chair, perusing Pinterest and commenting on pins, I sneakily placed the fantastical box of floss on the armrest of her chair.  She was polite enough to say, “OMG!  Where’d you find it?”  So at least I got to tell her the most interesting story about the stack of baskets.

And that was it.

__________

When licking the wounds that were the result of my underappreciated discovery, it occurred to me that the search for the floss is so much like my (and maybe your?) search for happiness.  I have looked high and low for happiness.  I have looked in the same places multiple times.  I have asked for signs and dreams and read the runes and checked my horoscope for happiness.  I have asked others if they’ve seen it.  I have been mad at others for not looking for it with me.

And wouldn’t you know, when I’m least expecting to find it, and pretty much ready to give up looking, there it is.