Weekend Update
Jan. 20th, 2003 12:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lawnrrdIt has been an odd couple of days, but I'm feeling noticeably better about myself and the world.
Friday night, my wife and I had a planned quiet evening at home. The details aren't important, but things didn't go well. We wound up annoying the hell out of each other and vividly illustrating how different we are and how we communicate differently.
Saturday was mostly catching up on various personal and household tasks, like laundry. There was a great deal of unsuccessful trying-very-hard-not-to-be-annoyed-at-or-annoying-to-each-other. I baked an apple pie that turned out wonderfully.
My wife had plans for a girls' night out, since it was a friends' birthday. I made plans to have dinner with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
starkyld. She's always interesting to chat with, and I like to live vicariously through her various adventures.
And then, just as I was getting ready to leave for dinner, disaster struck. I was bringing the large bottle of liquid detergent downstairs in the laundry basket. I tilted the basket some while getting through the front door, then the bottle fell over in the basket, and that's when I discovered that my wife had not tightened the cap.
Liquid Tide poured out. Most of it remained in the basket, and very little of the remainder hit the floor, as it conveniently soaked into the horribly expensive handmade rug we had brought back from our honeymoon in Turkey.
The mess took about two hours to clean up. Most of that time was spent trying to get detergent out of the bathroom carpet. I also took the Turkish rug into the bathtub, and used the shower head to try to get the detergent out of it. I used cold water, but of course the dyes bled somewhat and the texture stiffened as the rug dried.
I called the restaurant where starkyld and I had planned to meet, and she wound up coming to my apartment. She watched me clean for a while, then we went for dinner at an Italian restaurant in my neighborhood.
After dinner, as I was walking starkyld back to the subway from the restaurant, my wife called me, furious demanding to know why the rug was soaking wet, and why there was a huge wet spot on the bathroom carpet, and why her apartment was in chaos. I told her I would be home in a few minutes and we could discuss things then.
Throughout my life, I have put far too much time, effort, and energy into avoiding even the possibility of conflict, mostly out of a groundless mortal fear of conflict. One result has been that I have hidden from much of my own life and my own desires. When even that has not been enough, I have done whatever is necessary to placate everyone else in my life. It's one of the things I hate most about myself, one of the greatest sources of the anger that gnaws at me whenever I run out of distractions. The terrible part is that it's been reflexive--it happens before I notice it, before I think about it, and before I have an opportunity to do anything about it. So I'm already paralyzed with fear and tension and the need to make the conflict go away, and it's only afterwards that I become capable of reflection on the silliness of it all.
But not this time. I had done nothing wrong. If our positions had been reversed, if I had been the one who had left the cap loose, and she had spilled and spent two hours cleaning and trying to avoid property damage, my wife would be equally angry at me. And that's not fair.
Fairness, historically, has had nothing to do with my reactions. But going home, I felt none of the fear, none of the tension that has historically accompanied imminent conflict with anyone, much less someone close to me. I did not feel determined, my teeth were not clenched. Instead, I was more relaxed than I had felt at any time in the preceding weeks. Inside, I was quiet. (And when I say "quiet," I emphatically do not mean "numb.")
I got home. She was furious for a while. I told her what happened. We folded laundry for a while. She calmed down. We went to bed.
And after all that, today was a very good day. The mutual irritability was gone. The rug is in the state it's in, and we will get it cleaned, and that is that. I spent the early afternoon finishing catching up on reconciling six months' worth of bank and credit card statements that I had allowed to pile up. I actually checked quite a few items off of my to-do list this weekend, and I'm starting to feel better about my ability to get things done.
We went to a friend's to watch the football game, and the Eagles lost after an uninspired performance. We were disappointed, but shit happens. I brought the aforementioned delicious pie, which served as dessert after a meal of snacks during the game.
And the weirdest thing is that for the first time in a very, very long time, I feel that no matter how things work out with my marriage, with kids, with my career--with everything--things will really be All Right.
Friday night, my wife and I had a planned quiet evening at home. The details aren't important, but things didn't go well. We wound up annoying the hell out of each other and vividly illustrating how different we are and how we communicate differently.
Saturday was mostly catching up on various personal and household tasks, like laundry. There was a great deal of unsuccessful trying-very-hard-not-to-be-annoyed-at-or-annoying-to-each-other. I baked an apple pie that turned out wonderfully.
My wife had plans for a girls' night out, since it was a friends' birthday. I made plans to have dinner with
starkyld. She's always interesting to chat with, and I like to live vicariously through her various adventures. And then, just as I was getting ready to leave for dinner, disaster struck. I was bringing the large bottle of liquid detergent downstairs in the laundry basket. I tilted the basket some while getting through the front door, then the bottle fell over in the basket, and that's when I discovered that my wife had not tightened the cap.
Liquid Tide poured out. Most of it remained in the basket, and very little of the remainder hit the floor, as it conveniently soaked into the horribly expensive handmade rug we had brought back from our honeymoon in Turkey.
The mess took about two hours to clean up. Most of that time was spent trying to get detergent out of the bathroom carpet. I also took the Turkish rug into the bathtub, and used the shower head to try to get the detergent out of it. I used cold water, but of course the dyes bled somewhat and the texture stiffened as the rug dried.
I called the restaurant where starkyld and I had planned to meet, and she wound up coming to my apartment. She watched me clean for a while, then we went for dinner at an Italian restaurant in my neighborhood.
After dinner, as I was walking starkyld back to the subway from the restaurant, my wife called me, furious demanding to know why the rug was soaking wet, and why there was a huge wet spot on the bathroom carpet, and why her apartment was in chaos. I told her I would be home in a few minutes and we could discuss things then.
Throughout my life, I have put far too much time, effort, and energy into avoiding even the possibility of conflict, mostly out of a groundless mortal fear of conflict. One result has been that I have hidden from much of my own life and my own desires. When even that has not been enough, I have done whatever is necessary to placate everyone else in my life. It's one of the things I hate most about myself, one of the greatest sources of the anger that gnaws at me whenever I run out of distractions. The terrible part is that it's been reflexive--it happens before I notice it, before I think about it, and before I have an opportunity to do anything about it. So I'm already paralyzed with fear and tension and the need to make the conflict go away, and it's only afterwards that I become capable of reflection on the silliness of it all.
But not this time. I had done nothing wrong. If our positions had been reversed, if I had been the one who had left the cap loose, and she had spilled and spent two hours cleaning and trying to avoid property damage, my wife would be equally angry at me. And that's not fair.
Fairness, historically, has had nothing to do with my reactions. But going home, I felt none of the fear, none of the tension that has historically accompanied imminent conflict with anyone, much less someone close to me. I did not feel determined, my teeth were not clenched. Instead, I was more relaxed than I had felt at any time in the preceding weeks. Inside, I was quiet. (And when I say "quiet," I emphatically do not mean "numb.")
I got home. She was furious for a while. I told her what happened. We folded laundry for a while. She calmed down. We went to bed.
And after all that, today was a very good day. The mutual irritability was gone. The rug is in the state it's in, and we will get it cleaned, and that is that. I spent the early afternoon finishing catching up on reconciling six months' worth of bank and credit card statements that I had allowed to pile up. I actually checked quite a few items off of my to-do list this weekend, and I'm starting to feel better about my ability to get things done.
We went to a friend's to watch the football game, and the Eagles lost after an uninspired performance. We were disappointed, but shit happens. I brought the aforementioned delicious pie, which served as dessert after a meal of snacks during the game.
And the weirdest thing is that for the first time in a very, very long time, I feel that no matter how things work out with my marriage, with kids, with my career--with everything--things will really be All Right.
