i am in the midst of yet another egg shell waltz with my beloved. i'm celebraing the fact that the waltz has yet to escalate into yet another round of domestic tit for tat. so far. our egg shell waltz has a herstory (history, too) of escalating to genuinely vicious tit for tat skirmishes before either of us realize the escalation has occurred. with our 43rd anniversary approaching, we might be gaining some clues. FINALLY! ! ! 

it was i who triggered the egg shell waltz. the chemical/mechanical components of the trigger feel fairly irrelevant to me right now. the trigger is only a trigger. the heart of the matter is the volatile mix which the trigger sparks. "not trying to. . ." was the dominant refrain of the song. we both managed to do all the things we were trying not to and we still have no agreed upon names for the ^its^ we were trying not to do.

i find myself reviewing early psychotherapy where we identified "i'm trying" as a defensive mechanism by which i coped with the abusive lectures on what i ^should^ be doing. please remember that too many of these lectures were geared toward making me the perfect kiddie whorehouse "good girl." the similar lectures from sounder morals felt too socially distant to even attempt. "i'm trying" was an easy escape from both lecture sets. when i finally reached my first formal psychotherapy session, "i'm trying" became the driving mechanism behind my "help seeking denial" by which i asked freely for help and proceeded to find fatal flaws in every scrap of help offered. i jumped that hurdle by replacing "i'm trying" with, "i'm doing." it's okay if i do it badly in the beginning. just quit trying and start doing.

this morning's journey through accomplishing everthing i was trying not to do has me wondering if trying not to is a guarantee that i probably will do whatever it is i'm trying not to.

am i making sense? reality checks requested. personal experience welcome. unsolicited advice tolerated.