(Originally posted in Facebook April 19, 2019)
Had a GREAT evening last night. A couple of friends and I got together for dinner and it was a real treat to sit and laugh and tell stories and eat my weight in chips and salsa for an evening. I can’t tell you how much I needed some time like that. I was out later than I intended to be, but M did just fine with me being gone – he and the pups were in bed, watching a baseball game on TV when I got home.
As I was talking to my friends last night, we got on the subject of behavior and how people act and respond to each other. When you’re in a long-term relationship (like a 35 year marriage) you expect certain behaviors and responses. And they fall into two categories – acceptable behaviors and unacceptable.
As we talked more about it, we discussed M and his responses to things and events now vs. how he used to respond. It’s not that his responses are unacceptable if you define unacceptable as cruel or violent or mean. But his responses are not what I’ve been “taught” (for lack of a better word) to expect after all these years. So I’m caught off guard by his responses – or lack of response.
What I have to realize – and this is where I think I’m having a problem – is that he’s not going to change, so I’m the one who has to change the way I respond to him.
Intellectually, I know this. And when I’m well rested and calm and not hungry and not stressed and not hurried or anxious, it’s easy for me to respond to him in a calm and measured way. But how many minutes in a day am I feeling that peaceful?
Maybe ten?
Life isn’t like that. Life is hurried and flying by the seat of your pants and put together with spit and kleenex. And we’ve discussed how little (none) patience I have. And now I’m trying to change 35 years of my “natural” response.
Then we add to all this how unfair I’m still feeling it is. I’m still angry. I look around at other people . . . people who are drug users, alcoholics, serial marriage cheaters, wife beaters and I think why? Why was this wonderful, caring, kind man struck with such a horrible disease when all these other jerks are still walking around being jerks?
I used to think that when I died, the first thing I was going to ask God is why I couldn’t sing when I was here on earth. I love to sing, but I can’t carry a tune in a bucket. Now, I think I have bigger questions.