Another New Step

A classic phase in the sport of Domestic Tit-for-Tat is where each participant accuses the other of having a jolly good time making the other one miserable. I am eternally grateful that Hubs and I have been able to insert a new step to this phase in our own skirmishes: Recovery Time. This step pays closer attention to the physical symptoms each of us feel during and after the skirmishes. We first started plying this step, mutually, in 2012 after our last police intervention level blow-out. I had learned the step in my support groups, so I let it begin with me. I had been plying the new step for quite a few years. The 2012 blow out was where I was finally able to communicate the step to Hubs and he, too, dropped the notion that the adrenaline rushes and incumbant side effects were jolly good fun designed to make *his* life miserable.

Hubs and I fell into another Tit-for-Tat skirmish while discussing the shitload of no-fucking-fair details attached to finding ourselves with the possible need to provide middle aged dependants within our retirement schemes. The Urban Homestead was a retirement plan we had been working since our middle aged children were still young and filled with potentials. Hubs was still traumatized by the state of our retirement homestead under the exclusive care of those middle-aged dependants. It won't be too long before neighbors start calling the Health Department. Hubs is far more shocked with the development than I am. He's been busy in the corporate halls and writing off the development of this condition as housewife neurosis. Whatever the evers of all those whats, he, too, is ready to accept that our retirement dreams of two old geezers puttering around the Urban Agriculture scene is not going to work inside our modest urban half acre with the added population of middle aged dependents. The house, etc., won't support it. 3 bedrooms won't comfortably support that many adults plus grandchildren. Dare I factor in the realities of old-age? Good luck convincing middle-aged cherubs that Mommy and Daddy aren't going to live forever. At present, I wouldn't trust any of those cherubs with nursing assistance. I feel far, far safer among the residents of their respective Toxic People Landfills.

Gee. . . How do all those fun facts and future potentials keep spinning off into Tit-for-Tat skirmishes?

Hubs and I were adventure driving when the skirmish begain. Is there anything funner than being trapped in a cramped vehicle during a Tit-for-Tat skirmish? Fortunately, I was driving. Hubs tends to channel his Tit-for-Tat energy into the gas pedal. He has the driving record to prove it.

Progress over perfection. . .

We backed off and headed back to the farm where each of us could find our own safe place to calm the "jolly good fun" of the physical whiplash. When I emerged from my own safe place, I found him in the honey barn, feeding his poet with the writing of a new song. He looked allot like a cute neighbor I had back in my college days. I still wonder often what happened to that cutie. It has been ALLOT of years since I have felt comfortable playing my guitar with Hubs in the house, much less while he was feeding his poet. Yesterday evening I didnae even question my urge to pull my own guitar out of its case. I just did it and suddenly those fun facts surrounding the middle aged dependants felt much more humane as we resumed the discussion of where to go from here.

Small steps, big faith and lots of prayer. . . Let God lead the dance. . . We'll provide the soundtrack? Maybe?