When I'm 64

On Friday night Sihing Kichko got us sihings to share with eachother, our inner struggles in relation to the approaching black belt test. For myself, it was not surprising to find out that we each experienced variations of fear, terror, self-doubt, lack of confidence, and guilt. The act of sharing these emotions provided a source of strength for me in that our group took another giant step towards gaining support and strength from eachother.

Afterwards, at the boot camp, a topic that I was hesitant to broach on Friday, was discussed by a number of the sihings. It was a topic that I've been keeping close to my chest for a long time, perhaps because it is at the very core of my struggles with my feelings of guilt. I was relieved to find out on Saturday that it was a valid, and common struggle for at least a few others.

It is true when Sifu Brinker says that this is a journey of enormous personal growth. Looking back at my journey thus far, and looking forward to my developing goals, aspirations, values and committments, and strengths, I can only sum it all up by saying that an entire universe has unfolded. I am truly pumped about where I want to go from here. On the other hand, this journey has also exacerbated a drifting apart between myself and my husband. I constantly hope and pray, that this is only a tempory state, initiated by our intense focus on our children, and the lack of energy and time we have left over at the end of each day for eachother.

What I have known for a long time is that there are many of us experiencing the same struggle. In the last couple of years, with the children becoming less dependent on their mothers, the females I have talked to describe a re-booting of our own personal aspirations. Things that were put on hold, such as kung fu, travel, fun, change, personal growth, contributing to community, can now be re-visited. And as we enter into these things, it is accompanied by a surge in excitement, and energy.

Our husbands, on the other hand, are responding to this return to normalcy, by coming home at work at the end of the day exhausted and deflated. All they want to do is sit; that's what they didn't have time for in the past, and now that's what they want to do. So, rather than a coming back together, there is a further drift apart. And our attempts to re-engage our spouses by suggesting together activities, exercise, experiences, fun and change, are met with stubborn refusal or disinterest. So when we go off to our classes, boot camps, seminars and training, there is that sense of guilt that the time and energy put into our personal growth is misplaced: wouldn't it be more appropriate to put that energy into the growth of relationships?

As I look around myself at the people who share the above struggles, I see more failed relationships than I care to think about. And I wonder if its less that I dare to be different, or that I feel too weak to continue on the path that is separating us. I was greatly heartened by a journal post by Sifu Linda Shipalesky a number of month's back, in which she mentioned a coming together in her relationship. How can my husband and I achieve the same thing? Perhaps a UBBT requirement should be involved. I believe that the coming back together is the more fulfilling path, not because of an arbitrary rule or vow, but because looking back, I have seen what, in this particular scenario, we as partners have achieved together, and looking forward, I have witnessed the enormous personal toll on the invidual and and rest of the family that the coming apart has taken.

So there is the crux of my guilt struggle. As Sihing Lilienskold and I tried out the various BJJ techniques at the boot camp, we both ruminated on the wonderful moments of fun, laughs, new interests we were sharing, and regretted that these moments were not being added to a bank of experiences in our spousal relationships. Instead, a bank of unshared experiences is accumulating, and before long, the scales will tip irreversibly.