Tricia Rose Burt - How Not to Feel Crazy

 

 

I was raised that I should get married, that I should defer to my husband and that I should rely on my husband to make me happy. I can tell you firsthand that this is inherently flawed. [audience laughter] When my husband and I separate after five years of marriage, he stays in our home in Sudbury in the suburbs, right outside of Boston. And I rent an apartment in town in Back Bay. And as it turns out, without knowing it, I moved directly across the street from the woman my husband's been having an affair with. 

 

Now, for months, I suspected he was having an affair, but he kept denying it and telling me I was imagining things. And so, I just felt crazy. So, a couple of months after I moved in the new apartment, I thought to myself, I said, you know, God, I just don't want to feel crazy anymore. So, if he's having an affair, please let me know it. And if he's not having an affair, please help me trust him. And three days later, I'm driving to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where I'm a part time art student, and I see my husband's car on the side of the road. It's this little white Alfa Romeo. You can't miss it. And there's a woman putting something in my husband's car. 

 

And the first thing I do is throw my hands up in the air and say, “Thank you, God, I'm not crazy.” [audience laughter] And then, I pull over and I say, “Hi, that's my husband's car.” And she says, “Well, I don't know what you're talking about.” And I said, “But that's my husband's car.” And she says, “Well, I guess you're just going to have to talk to him about that.” I said, “Give me a break. I've been married to the guy for five years, and that's my husband's car. Where's my husband?” And right at that moment, he rounds the corner with an overnight bag. And I say, “I think we need to talk.” And he says, “Well, where do you want to talk?” And I say, “How about across the street at my apartment?” 

 

I live at 304 Beacon Street and she lives at 309 Beacon Street which he knows. He convinces me that it is not a physical affair, but a spiritual one. [audience laughter] And a dear friend, says “Tricia, that's worse. Plus, he's lying to you.” [audience laughter] My husband and his girlfriend don't last. We start going to marriage counseling, and I plunge into a very scary depression. 

 

I'm pacing along the Charles River, crossing the bridges and walking the same circle over and over again. I keep looking at my arms, because I'm convinced I have sores all over my body. My throat is so tight I can only eat mashed potatoes and chicken broth, nothing crunchy. So, I'm incredibly thin and I look like I should be hospitalized. The only way I can get out of bed is to figure out how many hours until I can get back in it. I can concentrate for about five minutes at a time, and my nerves feel the way sunburned skin feels when you open up a really hot oven. 

 

With the help of a bevy of therapists and heavy medications, I'm able to continue working, and pay my bills and keep going to art school. And art school is what gets me through this separation. Art school and church. And both places challenge how I was raised in very different ways, but they're saying the same thing, “You have a voice. Listen to the voice and become who you're being called to be and you're going to be happy.” 

 

Now, as an emerging artist, I craved anything that art school had to offer. And so, I went to Ireland with the museum school on a painting trip. I chose Ireland, because I wanted mist and rain and tragedy. I was looking for drama and angst. Instead, the sun shone every day [audience laughter] for three straight weeks. It was the first time in 20 years they had a stretch of sunshine for that long. [audience laughter] One day, it was hotter in Ireland than it was in Greece. 

 

Right before I left for Ireland, there was this slightest chance my husband and I could reconcile. But with distance brings clarity, and I realized I couldn't even write that guy a letter, much less be married to him. So, I went into this little church and I said, “You know what God? I am so happy to be alone. I don't want a husband. I don't even want a boyfriend. All I want is to make art. And I mean this from the bottom of my toes.” I don't know it at the time, but I meet my future husband that night. 

 

I'm standing on this one of those Irish stone walls and I'm looking at this amazing sunset. I'm having a hard time getting off the wall, because I have these pretty but stupid shoes on. And things look kind of precarious. And out of the blue, I hear someone say, “Do you need a hand?” I look down and there's this incredibly handsome Irishman. I'm confused, because I've just announced how happy I was to be alone. [audience laughter] And then I say, “Yes. Yes, I do need a hand.” He helps me off the wall and we start walking down the road together. I know that I would go through all that pain all over again if it brought me to this moment. Thank you.