You had me at "I can make that move with my mind"

Mediation, Buddhism, energy, chakras and things of that sort were something I found interesting and intruiging in the 19 year old Dave. I didn't personally believe in them as I had grown up with a Christian faith which basically discouraged all of those things. But I had never met a guy of his age...or anyone of any age actually, who had such an interest in that stuff. He was gentle, peaceful and soft spoken and had been practicing meditation for quite some time, so I thought that if this was the end result of all of the above activities then maybe they weren't so bad. At times he had tried to explain meditation to me as well as how he could generate and feel energy throughout his body. In particular he would focus on generating energy between his hands. I never really bought into any of it but just accepted that this was part of his life and what he was interested in. He would demonstrate this by rubbing his hands together then placing them about 3 inches apart and then ask me to put my hand between his. I felt heat, yes, but that was logical considering he just finished rubbing his hands together. He described it as more than just that. Okay, whatever, not my thing. And I don't mean to pick apart every strange or unique thing Dave has ever done. That would hurt him and I certainly don't want to do that. But these behaviors lead to more elaborate things. Part of me still wonders if any of it were true in the ways he was describing them. You never know.... Years later, either slightly before or shortly after our twins came to be ours Dave asked me to come sit beside him on the couch. Our TV was straight ahead of us on a 100 year old shelf I had stained. From the shelf hung a wispy orange scarf. Dave asked me to focus on the scarf and tell him when it moved. Well....I didn't cue him to any movement but then he asked me "did you see that?" Dave was trying to show me that he could move the scarf with his mind. My explanation for this would be more similar to when you stare at something so long that it begins to distort. I was sad. Confused. Afraid. And then avoided the whole thing entirely. I didn't know I was such an avoider until I looked back at the mess of years of avoidance. I like to replace that thought with maybe I was a supportive wife who loved a man who had so many plans but never quite lived up to any of them. I also like to pretend that I don't look stupid in all of this. But the questions of why I did not say anything and why I did not leave sooner or ask for help sooner haunted me then and even a little now. There is no answer to these questions because I simply do not know. What I do know is that in times of hurt or crisis or anger or avoidance, I seem to focus on what needs to be done, put a smile on my face and carry on. That probably made me look like the crazy one in the midst of cleaning out our basement and storage containers full of survival supplies and five garage sales to get rid of it all. But I am not sure what else I could have done. I survived it, after all.