Funny Valentine

I wrote my husband a love letter the other day.

Or maybe more like an obsessed fan letter. Like 'Dear Glorious Man, You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. Love, Psycho.'

We'd had a discussion the night before, subject unimportant, that didn't devolve into an argument, but still wasn't quite resolved in my brain. There is some sharp, Dorito-like chip of it still stuck in my craw. Like a record skipping & skipping & skipping.

He says I talk in riddles when we argue or discuss. I say they're analogies.

At any rate, I say I'm usually the Peacemaker. The Ender of Awkwardness. The Breaker of Silences. Not getting along is hugely inconvenient for me. It's like walking around with a dead monkey tethered to your leg, and everyone knows I don't even like living monkeys. (That was an analogy joke. Ha?)

I didn't used to be that way. I could hold out with the best of them. I know how to be the Wounded Party. And boy, could I hold a grudge. I kind of like not speaking for days at a time.

But I've decided that I'm too old, life is too short, and if I'm going to expend that much extra emotional energy, I'm going to try to be positive. Instead of being a mean & spiteful bitch (and I've got natural abilities,) I try to be calm & gentle. Not only trying to not say mean things, but saying nice things. Give a hug when I'd rather strangle. Keep my mouth shut when I feel like spitting nails. Write a love letter when I'm feeling maybe not so appreciated. It's surprising how quickly my ire is neutralized.

Along the same lines of doing stuff I don't always feel like doing but end up glad I did:

-Listening to Lily read the same really, really long story for her homework assignment. Including the parts where she keeps flipping back a page to show me something. Something we just saw when she read it a second ago. When I really need to do the dishes and the laundry, clean up the stacks of paper & mail, clean the mystery sticky stuff from the floor. When I'm so overloaded with human contact from being at work all day and I just want to crawl in a hole. I know my days of her reading to me are numbered.

-Playing video games with Sam. I'm no good at video games. And somehow I always accidently hit the pause button on the Wii-mote and mess up the game, but he still asks me to play.

-Lingering hugs with Aggie. Really, really lingering. Like you wonder if she fell asleep. Not that I don't love her hugs, but it seems like she wants them most when I'm scurrying through the kitchen from one chore to the next with ten things on my mind. The thing is, I think part of the lingering is because she doesn't want to be the first to end the embrace just in case you're not ready to let go; she doesn't want to hurt your feelings.

-Watching 'Cops' with Mark. OK, there's very little satisfaction from that.