A roller coaster weekend

This weekend had a few more ups and downs than I expected. John and I did our usual Friday night routine of coming home from work, relaxing for a few, and then going out to eat somewhere new. We tried a new seafood place that was just ok but was very reasonably priced so that made up for any disappointments in taste. Then we walked to the end of the pier where John’s coworkers were doing some fishing and John recently bought a pole so we thought he would get some use out of it. I quickly became tired of the fishy smell and left him to fish with his friends. We have gotten some new neighbors, 3 20 year old girls who are enjoying their first apartment away from home. I think I will get tired of them sooner than expected judging by the way they are always outside and blaring music. I can’t be mad about it because that's what I would be doing if I was still 20, but I am not, I am old now. Sitting in my living room listening to their fun made me sad that I wasn’t in Nashville this weekend for Katie Bo’s bachelorette party.
On Saturday John and I took the car to get serviced and then tried brunch at Café Rae, it was pretty good and John said he will take his mom here when she comes to visit. We then wandered down to the Ocean Festival which lacked the excitement I hoped for. It mainly meant for me a very crowded beach and having to walk farther to lay out. The waves proved to crazy for John to surf even after he went to the trouble of walking through the crowd with his board, I felt bad for him. We had to head back kind of early because we had the Angel’s game to get to. My work paid for the tickets and dinner (which was not good at all) and all we had to pay was parking. I have of course no interest in sports but never turn down anything free so off we went. We stayed for about half of the game and then called it quits. It wasn’t my type of thing but it was still fun to go to the park and reaffirm that I could care less about baseball. Saturday night one of John’s coworkers was having a birthday party and since all these guys are single I opted to stay home and not be the only girl in a house full of boys. My one friend I really have to hang out with on the weekends was out of town so from like 9-11 I once again sat and listened to my neighbors smoke and drink. If I was a very social person I might have gone down and joined them but I am not. Also I feel like I am to old and will seem like their mom hanging out with them. This is when my homesickness and wanting to be in Nashville was further amplified. As much as I knew my emotions were sadness I chose to turn them in to anger at John for not hanging out with me during this difficult time. I hadn’t actually told him I was sad but like all women I felt he should just have known how I felt.
So Sunday morning I got up early to go run, full of anger and sadness and several other irrational emotions, and slammed the door on my way out so John would know I was not happy. When I got back from my run John had gotten me a bagel, dusted (which he never does) and picked up around the house. I knew that he must have felt he was in trouble which somehow made me feel justified at being unfairly mad at him. Finally his niceness and my unnecessary crying wore me down and I told him that he wasn’t in trouble I was just sad and taking it out on him. So off we go to church and the sermon is all about love. At one point you turn to your neighbor and discuss the last time you genuinely selflessly showed love to someone. Of course John had several examples from that morning and all I could think about was slamming the door on him. Needless to say I could think of lots of examples when I failed to show love to someone that could have used it. I thought a lot about the homeless woman that stalks me in town that I get angry with and considered how I could handle the situation differently in the future. After church we were both hungry and like always couldn’t decide where to eat so that lead to snipping at each other. Later that day I got back from the grocery and we got in a totally unnecessary fight. Like most of these type of fights there is a bigger issue at the heart of the little arguments you are having. The best thing that can happen is that you figure out what is really going on and thanks to the sermon at church I was better able to get a handle on it.
I am sure John and I are not the only people that deal with this issue. We both want to make the other person happy and try our best to please that when we feel like we have disappointed the other person we beat ourselves up. This disappointment in ourselves is usually what leads to a silly fight later because we are trying to deal with the way we feel about ourselves. It went back to church when we discussed how love is when you would sacrifice anything for another person. All I want is to be a good partner for John and to make him happy so if I make him a special treat and he seems not to care or if he says that I am being grouchy I start to feel a sense of failure. Sometimes that sense of failure makes you act out in ways that aren’t fair to the other person. They might not even feel like you have done anything wrong or disappointed them but you have gotten yourself in this defense position of being attacked becuase you feel like they are disapointed in you. Really you are the only one attacking yourself. So it was nice for John and I to discuss that we are both very hard on ourselves because we are trying to always make the other happy and we just need to give ourselves a break. I am not judging his husband skill and he is not judging my wife skills on the same level we judge ourselves so we need to relax a little. We are hurting our relationship by trying to make it perfect, I think that might be irony.
We also agreed that I will decide where we will eat at from now on because all we do is try to figure out what the other person might really want and we never can make an easy decision. When you eat as much as John and I do this can lead to a lot of tension so from now on I will decide and John has the veto option, wish me luck.
On a side note, Sunday we observed a couple walking up the street yelling horribly at each other and obviously in a major fight. As we watched them I just thought, some days are just like that. Even in one short year of marriage and 10.5 years of dating I know that some days are good and some aren’t. They aren’t all going to be winners and that is ok. As long as we work it out and move on from it I can accept that some days just aren’t going to work. The more pressure you feel to make every day perfect the more disappointed you are when it doesn’t happen. We have an amazing life, are totally blessed, and totally in love but somedays just don’t work. The main thing I got from doing P90X workout videos wasn’t a killer body it was that mindset that you do your best and forget the rest.