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Introduction to Brandlady.com |
The Male Ego and the Woman
T he argument started almost the minute he entered in from the world outside. Tired, despondent and worn out from the day-to-day drudgery of working for an insipidly indolent boss, the man sought to regroup emotionally by retreating into the safe haven of his own home. As he quietly opened and then closed the front door to slip unaware into the vestibule that further led into a spacious, yet modestly decorated living room, he shut his eyes and sighed as always. And as always, his exhausted grim-like mouth suddenly turn into a shaky hopeful smile for he promptly heard the anticipated lilting sound of a breath of fresh air. "You're home!" The sound of the little girl's voice awakened within the man a sense of peace, serenity and worthiness that could not be manufactured anywhere but in the presence of her worshiping and adoring love. With his eyes still closed, his mind wrapped around that wonderful feeling and sound. As always, she suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and he could picture her as she stood still to the full height of her small stature for one frozen moment, before her immediate dash forward as if she were a runner who had just heard the sudden blast of the starting pistol at the launch of a race. The tiredness in his voice magically disappeared as he responded with like zeal. "Hello, my sweetheart!" The man's slightly stooped shoulders straightened somewhat with renewed life as he allowed his briefcase to fall the short distance to the foyer's ceramic tile floor. In automatic reflex, he felt his arms stretched out to receive his loving bundle he knew was in the process of leaping as graceful as a small-sized gazelle into his waiting embrace. "I'm so glad you're home. I missed you so much and I love you!" Her unabashed, genuine delight in seeing him warmed him to his core, the very act of her enthusiasm flushed away all the grime and degradation of the workplace that had managed to settle within him before he made his way home. He embraced her as if she were a life preserver and he the sole survivor of a torn raft that was on the verge of quickly sinking to the bottom of the sea. As she wrapped her tiny arms about his neck, he took one arm and embraced her against his chest, as he took his other open palm and cradled the back of her head with it as they placed their heads cheek-to-cheek. The man's eyes continued to remain shut as he then found himself briefly inhale her childlike essence. She smelled of peanut butter, wheat toast - and baby oil. She turned her head slightly and placed a small, moist kiss on the side of a face that had already begun to form the next day's five o'clock shadow. Her manner was of an unpretentious childlike innocence that let him know her declaration of love were no mere words, but would always be reinforced with its corresponding action. He seemed to breathe out his next words with air that was light and breezy. "Baby, I love you too. How was your day?" "You're late." The interloping voice was that of a calm, dead quiet; and its volume was spoken to match the quietness of a breeze that filtered through a soft green meadow which caused the occupying flowers to sway in its subtle wind. Yet the words themselves shouted as loud as the rumble of an ocean's storm that raged like an out of control tempest. The man's body stilled for a moment as its inner manly core endeavored to adapt to the change of total adoration of his person, to the verbalized lessening of his manhood. As he felt his body stiffen, he could almost feel the tiny body still within his embrace to become rigid as well. He could only imagine that her soft, clinging arms tightened ever so gently in its silent instruction not to let her down less there be more trouble her small, suddenly protective body could not shield him from. Yet after a small, very brief second of regret the man finally opened his eyes to confront the voice and let her comforting presence go just the same. "I know. I'm sorry. The boss had me stay later to finish up some paperwork he forgot to do." A very short, almost imperceptible angry sigh slid frustratingly from her lips. "And you could not pick up the phone to call your wife and let her know this, right?" He felt his body brace itself as he paused a moment to simply look at his wife, and he took in all her livid loveliness. He hated when she spoke about herself in the third person when holding a conversation with him - it always meant trouble for him. He watched as she stood framed within the archway that separated the living room from the dining area, her arms folded tightly across the growing bulge of her stomach. As he stared at her, she took her left hand and began to absentmindedly rub her expanding womb in an almost angry circular fashion as if to soothe the baby girl that lay within. Visibly, his countenance dropped even further as he quietly watched the last bit of a perceived homey refuge slip through his fingers. She mistakenly mistook his silence for an affirmation to continue her tirade. "So once again, here I am waiting for you to come home and you do not even have the decency to let me know you're going to be late. Don't you know I could have eaten by now! But no, you have to become a slave to that boss of yours. Why don't you be a man and simply have the guts to tell him to kiss off? That you have a wife and child who need you just as much as that lousy job! Why can't you ever consider my feelings for once?" The woman rubbed her stomach and its growing load again for emphasis as if to make sure she included the unborn child in her ranting, somehow wanting to let it know she was sticking up for her rights too. The woman took a moment to breath, and bestowed on him the unexpected courtesy of a lapse in her fussing in order to give him a chance to respond. He took that opportunity to bend over and reach down to retrieve his almost forgotten heavily laden briefcase. In his attempt to straighten, he silently realized his body refused to completely stand to its full height as when he first encountered the little girl only moments ago, but instead it willingly choose to revert back to the same stooped position he originally entered the house with. He found he was suddenly too weary to argue yet again over the same old things, and his voice came out in a tired, almost defeated whisper. "What do you want from me?" The woman blinked harshly, but said nothing. As silence grew into an almost deafening roar, the now forgotten little girl crossed over from despondent man to angry woman. In her smallness she was almost imperceptible, as she stood silently by the woman's side to pleadingly look upward to her heated face. As calm as a lion tamer on the verge of approaching a ferocious man-eating lion, she quietly reached up to place a tiny hand on the crook of the wife's bended elbow in the hope that her soothing touch would extinguish the raging fire set against the husband who stood so defensively at the front door. It seemed to somewhat work, because the woman visibly bucked as if coming out of an anger-induced trance. "So stupid!" she said to no one in particular as she turned and practically waddled back down the hall toward the kitchen, the silent little girl choosing to trail like a despondent miniature ghost behind the retreating woman. Crying with her back toward the door, she stood in front of the kitchen stove, her head held low as her silent tears created a heaving motion that could be seen from behind. She knew her angry tears were much more than that of her husband's tardiness and not phoning her because of it. Yes, it was much, much more - it was the anguish of initially looking upon the serene face of her husband as he stood there at the front door, his eyes closed and smiling of things that she knew she probably had nothing to do with. Then she could feel her anger overflow within her to drown out that anguish once that same peaceful look abruptly disappear the moment he opened those eyes and have them fall upon her. He used to gift her with that very same look of contentment and happiness as the one he wore during the time his eyes were shut - it seemed so long, long ago - but now his tender affection was selfishly exclusive and on reserve for his own private use. "Go to him." The woman jumped and swung around to the entrance of the kitchen to look past the face of the little girl she used to be-so fragile - yet in so many ways - much stronger than she. "Go to him." Why must it always be me to make the first move? the woman lamented as she used the back of her hands to wiped away tears that continued to blur her obstructed vision. Yet once her sight cleared, the woman could not help as her eyes gazed wistfully through the open kitchen door and down the now dusk-filled long and narrow hallway that led out to the rest of the house - and her husband. It was more than just the child's commanding voice, which continued to swirl round and round within her head that compelled her to comply with its pleading, insistent words. Something else profound within the woman needed to know, to understand, what was it that continued to suck the life out of her marriage. Deep down she realized she urgently needed to find out before it was too late. She searched for him throughout their cozy, yet sterile dwelling and quickly found him in the tiny room off the back of their home. The room had previously been built as an oversized pantry, but they instead choose to convert it into a small nook that provided enough space for a small table, chair and floor lamp. Some time ago it had gradually become her husband's small place of refuge. He sat at the tiny table with his head hung down, his face resting dejectedly within his open palms. Pity overtook her emotions as she suddenly viewed the side angle of his body as it bent forward and bowed over; the posture making it to appear as if his shoulders despairingly bore the weight of the world upon them. She wanted to reach out to him just then, but the burden of her own anguished weight somehow pinned her arms to her sides; this at once caused her to feel the thing she feared the most from her now distant husband: rejection. She spoke softly and carefully, yet she could not keep a trace of resentment from interweaving with her words. "Why don't you ever treat me as if you love me anymore? When we were newlyweds, you used to love coming home to me. You couldn't wait to pull me in your arms and place my cheek so lovingly against yours, and leave the cares of the outside world behind. Yet now it seems as if all your love has been placed on reserve from me. And I don't know who you give it to! Why can't you treat me like that like the woman you first married?" The husband slowly pulled his head from his hands to tearfully look at his beautiful, yet distant wife, and all his heart longed for was the chance to turn back the clock to a time of which she spoke. His mind suddenly replayed his return home each day, and how he would walk through that front door, close his eyes, and smile for the briefest of moments as he imagined how it used to be when he came home to find his wife waiting for him as if he was the most important thing in her life. Every single day at that front door, he would find himself revert back into his own imaginary-land only to wish for that childlike innocent bride to greet him like that again. "Because she showed me every time I walked through that door that she was always happy to see me. She told me, and then actually showed me, just how much she cared." His eyes took on an almost pleading look, beseeching her to truly understand what he was attempting to convey from the heart. "She made me feel special when nobody else in this world could. And in spite of everything else that went on in the outside world, she made me feel worthy as a man. She made me glad to come home." As her husband referred to her as if in the third person - as she found herself doing whenever she was overcome with so much anger - she felt her hot tears once again start its slow trickle down the sides of her face. She thought back to a time when she did stand at the front door in childlike anticipation with open arms and a smile that bathed her husband in a loving welcome home. She did not even know just when it happened, but somehow the valued love she felt at the start of their marriage journey together had subtly transformed from that of a small, trusting and adoring hero-worshipping child - only to grow up into worthless adult feelings that were hardened with judgment, uncompromising criticism and self-contained selfishness. And although she knew he had his part to play in this alienating matter, she realized in remorseful guilt she was partially at fault. She too understood, as she first entered his place of sanctuary, that she was privy to observe, for the briefest of moments, her husband at his most vulnerable self. That God in all His wisdom had somehow given her the gift of a revelation nature - a deeply profound analogy when it came to the precious ego of a male. She had been blessed to see a rare metaphoric glimpse of something most women choose to overlook or simply ignore. As she took in his dejected slumped form which sat at that small table, she had in actuality witnessed the true essence of a male ego crushed under the emotional hammering of a woman's bitterness, anger and alienation. "I am so sorry, my love!" came the broken response of a woman who had become broken as well under the glaring, heavy burden of truth. Shaken to the very core, she beseechingly looked at her husband through totally renewed eyes. For once she was so very glad she listened to the smaller, childlike voice within that implored her in the kitchen to search him out to make things right. Silently, the man stood and then held out both arms to her in an invitation of forgiveness, and without hesitation the woman slid effortlessly into them. She felt warm and complete as he placed one arm around her body to hold her close and with his other open palm, reached up and gentle held the back of her head steady so that both their cheeks were intimately pressed lovingly against the other. The wife wrapped her own arms around his now erect frame and she could feel their bodies fit tightly together as that of a completed jigsaw puzzle. It seemed as if somehow his body concaved inward to accommodate the roundness of a belly that held the result of their dormant love, and the growing body of the tiny baby girl that nestled inside. The watchful little girl, who stood so quietly under the archway of the door witnessing the reconciliatory scene, silently glided over to where husband and wife stood and wrapped her tiny powerful arms about them; her invisible essence causing the baby to kick contently from within. As her girl-like presence disappeared to settle within her mother's womb, all at once husband and wife felt as if they - which in the past were two separate distinctive halves - had now finally stepped onto the same spiritual plateau as a whole - to truly become 'as one'. Did you enjoy this story? Give it a 'Digg' so others may find it and enjoy it too. 
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