The yin and the yang
When you write a column every week detailing the foibles and hilarities of your family life, people are bound to get ruffled feathers about something that you or your family has done or said. Take, for example, the reader who felt it necessary to alert me that my then-four-year-old may be a serial-killer-in-training because he placed our kitten in a desk drawer for several hours to keep it “safe”.
“Your son may be a psychopath,” she warned. “Remember Jeffrey Dahmer? His mother also thought he was a darling little boy. Now we all know he was not.” That’s all technically true. But still—yikes.
One of the meaner emails I’ve received was from a man responding to a column I wrote about my husband’s ill-advised suggestion to add canned green beans to the picture-perfect Sunday dinner I'd prepared. In the column, I detailed how "exhaustion, hunger and overall weird quarantine vibes” collided to make me explode in righteous wifely indignation at Logan’s innocent green bean proposal.
The subject line of this man’s email simply said “You”, followed by his message: "I am sorry for your husband. I wish him well.”
I laughed out loud, shared the man’s condolences with Logan, and then crafted my response: “I passed on your well wishes to my husband. He was grateful.”
It’s true that sometimes my stories make Logan and me out to be caricatures of our actual selves. I’m often the weary and exasperated wife and mother, while Logan is frequently the bewildered, bumbling husband.
But the truth is, Logan is the most capable man I know, and I would be utterly lost without him. Allow me to illustrate: last year, we had taken our boat out to Lake Roosevelt on the Fourth of July and were coming home after a fun and exhausting day on the water. Our Suburban was packed with our kids and all our gear, and Logan was at the wheel as we towed our boat down the freeway back towards home.
Suddenly, Logan turned down the music that was blasting throughout the car, concentrated intently for a few seconds, and then pulled the car and trailer off to the side of the road. Normally, Logan Ditto is cool as a cucumber, so if he acts worried or makes a sudden move, you know that you truly have cause for concern.
“What’s the matter?” I asked him as he put the car into park and opened the door. Up until that point, I had been oblivious to the fact that anything was wrong.
“The car is doing something weird,” he said, quickly hopping out to investigate. The kids and I watched him walk around to the side of the car, where he discovered that some lug nuts had come loose and one wheel had worked itself almost completely off the axle. We were seconds away from the wheel coming completely off. On that busy freeway, with a loaded car towing a boat, the outcome could have been catastrophic.
My two brothers and their families had been following us in their cars, so they helped Logan put the spare tire on the Suburban. There was no panic or fretting; I knew Logan had everything well in hand, and I assured my kids as much. Soon enough, we were back on our way home, safe and sound.
Months later, my brother Steven made an observation: “Sometimes something will happen and I’ll wonder, ‘How is Julia not completely freaking out about this?’ And then I’ll realize: it’s Logan. He has this calming effect on you.”
It’s true. I am able to be a calmer, better person because I know I can trust Logan completely. He handles what needs to be handled and always, always tries to do the right thing.
“Thank you for being my yang,” I said to him recently after we’d gotten through a particularly stressful day.
“You’re welcome, yin,” he replied, pulling me into a hug and giving me a kiss.
I’m not sure why he loves me so much, but for some reason, he does. And I thank God for him every single day.