When You Can't Find That Energy Again

My ex-wife told me something recently that I didn't expect. She said that after our marriage ended, she never found the same energy again.

My energy.

We've been divorced for twelve years, so we can apparently say things like this now without either of us assuming it means we should get back together.

I asked her what she meant.

She said I was always looking for ways to give. Not just giving. Looking to give.

That distinction stayed with me. She had lived for years with someone who was constantly noticing things. What might make her more comfortable. What might make her laugh. What might make something easier.

Nothing dramatic.

The softest sheets I could find because she loved a great bed.

The warmest blanket because she was always cold.

"Sounds like a long day. Take a car."

Her favorite thing already in the refrigerator because I noticed we were running low. Something handled before she knew it needed handling.

Little things.

But apparently enough little things eventually become an energy.

I had never thought about it that way. To me, it was just something I did.

Then our marriage ended.

Years passed. She met other people. Good people. People who cared about her.

But she told me she hadn't found that same instinct again.

Not better people or worse people.

Just different.

You don't necessarily notice someone's energy while you're living inside it. You just experience the result.

Life is a little easier.

The bed is comfortable.

The thing you like is somehow there.

Someone notices you've had a brutal day and says:

"Take a car."

You don't see the equation.

You just get the answer.

And eventually the answer starts looking normal.

Of course the sheets are soft.

Of course the blanket is warm.

Of course somebody noticed.

Except there is no of course.

Someone was paying attention.

I don't think forgetting that makes someone ungrateful.

I think it makes them human.

The Temperature

Every relationship develops its own temperature.

One person brings humor. Another brings calm. Someone makes you more adventurous. Someone makes you feel safe. Someone remembers the things you forget. Someone quietly removes friction from your life.

Live inside any of it long enough and eventually you stop noticing.

When you're warm, you don't spend much time thinking about warmth.

You're just warm.

It's when the temperature changes that you realize there ever was a temperature.

And sometimes you don't understand how unusual someone's particular energy was until you go looking for it again and can't find it.

• • •

The interesting part is that this wasn't only her realization.

I had already had mine.

I wrote in an earlier essay about how my ex-wife had been my regulator.

For years, I didn't really understand what that meant either.

She could slow me down without stopping me. She could tell me when I was pushing too hard, talking too much, moving too fast or simply needed to read the room.

At the time, that didn't feel like some extraordinary contribution to my life.

It felt like marriage.

Until it wasn't there anymore.

Then I understood it.

I had gotten used to her energy too.

Now We Both Do

That's what made this conversation different for me.

I wasn't sitting there thinking:

Finally. She understands what she had.

I was thinking:

Now we both do.

She had eventually discovered what it felt like not to have someone constantly looking for ways to make her life a little easier.

I had discovered what it felt like not to have someone who knew how to regulate mine.

Neither of us appreciated every part of those things while we had them.

How could we?

They were just there.

They were the temperature.

There was something unexpectedly comforting about knowing she eventually saw that part of me.

Maybe even a little closure.

Not because I needed her to tell me I was a good husband. I wasn't always one.

Not because it changed why our marriage ended.

It changed nothing.

But apparently there had been some small part of me that still wondered whether she had ever really seen that part of me.

Now I knew she had.

Just as I can see things she gave me much more clearly now than I could when we were married.

Some of what they give you becomes so woven into your life that you stop recognizing it as something they're giving you at all.

Until it's gone.

The temperature changes.

You go back into the world.

And sometimes you discover that the energy you thought was simply part of life belonged to one particular person.

She found that out about me.

I found it out about her.

It took us different amounts of time to get there.

But eventually, we both did.

Paul Harkins