Patience With YOU

When I started this blog, I should have pointed out one very important fact.  I am not educated in ANY sort of academic way about the topics I am tackling during this 52 week sojourn.  I live in and through, very dynamic personal experiences that have twisted, torn, compressed, molded, and churned me out into wanting to be a better person, inside and out…. But I am NOT an expert. I simply want to share my challenges with others, from the perspective of one who is living amidst a mess, in the cold, wet trenches, tossing out personal garbage and grasping to a few sparkling gems, just like many of us are trying to do…. daily…. for ourselves and the ones we love.  I humbly admit, I am not up to the task of writing to assist, guide, direct or transform anyone else’s life, but my own.  If you are wondering what has reminded me to say this….keep reading.  Lovely week 2….

I had my draft all ready to go yesterday, just needing little tweaks and edits before publishing today.  This week looked way too easy.  I was scrutinizing interactions for more challenges, but none came.  A few smaller moments of trigger awareness, were handily managed by realizing, being patient with people I love the most, is very similar to being patient with ME.   In order to be patient with YOU, I must see your inner ME, and treat YOU, as I would treat myself….with gentle curiosity.  Sounds like the golden rule, right?  EASY!  When I understand other ME’s have pain/worry/fear/judgement/sorrow running as a default program through the backdrop of their lives, my reaction is softened, less judgmental, less offended.  And so the week went, quietly listening for ME voices and staying in the ‘chill’ zone.  Not once did I come close to entering dangerous territory of enflamed engagements that ended in ME, feeling bad… about me.  But that was at the time of writing my draft, just 12 hours before ending Week 2, having only one thing left between the draft and publishing…..DATE NIGHT!

Celebrating 4 years with my incredible husband, it was not just a regular evening out, it was an anniversary date night.  For those of you with busy households and kids, you know this is the kind of night that comes along infrequently, a chance to get out and remember who you are as couple, without being a parent, an employee, a colleague, or slave to household chores.  It is a night long planned out, special budgeted money set aside and expected to be amazing!  Which it was…. except I was bothered.  Little triggers were creeping into the evening, subtle looks, teasing remarks that didn’t feel so funny, bringing up things the other person did not want to talk about, etc.  He is the closest person to me.  My best friend, a great travel companion, a super supporter of my wild dreams, and he’s bothering ME.  I could feel my blood pressure growing into the evening, past the point of listening to and accepting our ME’s, to settle on the negative turn of this night.  I tried to suppress my annoyance,  joking (because that sometimes works) and laughing nervously to release tension building within my core.  Hubby is so good at letting it roll, he stays cool, as I start to look for a bucket of ice water to douse my smoldering embers.  NO bucket available, so I smolder away.  12 hours is not enough time to turn this around! How do I write about this in a few hours, when I thought it was all wrapped up?

Humbly.  That’s how.  And maybe it is also the key to this week’s discovery.  As we drove home from our anniversary evening, all my senses were ready to pounce should one more trigger appear. As fear loomed about what I would write come morning,  I stared out the window to avoid what might transpire should I engage any further with hubby. As I gazed unfocussed at passing billboards and traffic lights, it dawned on me.  I am just reading signs, not creating them.  I cannot design the way for another to go, anymore than I can create a city road or street acceptable for safe traffic.  I can only share how I got to where I am, and share my attempts to get to where I am going.   We all choose whether or not to see signs, to heed them, to ignore them, to let them impact our actions and thoughts.  Signs are not of themselves good or bad.  They are just indicators of things that have been tried before and outcomes of those attempts.  So what are my signs telling me?

Pause.  Breathe.  Stay humble.

How did the evening end? Hubby thinks we had a great night, true.  I think we had a great night, also true.  But it took a big yield sign, slowing it all down enough to realize my feelings were not serving ME accurately this night.  Slowing my words from rushing into an emotional wasteland of blaming YOU, for which recovery is difficult.  Pausing to a degree required, in order to escape disaster.

I don’t and won’t have all the answers, but this is a worthy road to travel.  It is fine to write about it….share it…. but it is still for me, about ME, so whatever the outcomes of each week, it will be real.  There are no ‘fixed’ outcomes each week and it is OK that way.

Authentic.  Imperfect.  Non-academic.  There is much work to be done.  Thank you, Week 2.

AJ