He looked right at me, half-smiled, and said "Why?" and gave me that "Bring it on" look.
Without hesitation, I stared back at him and let out," Shawty fire burning on the dance floor. Whoa-oh-oh!" I then stood up and danced my way out of the room. Who did he think he was challenging?
The last couple of days have been complaint-free! And I can attribute that to more scenes like the one I just described.
My husband is the only person with whom I can unequivocally be myself. I have best friends that are like family, but even around them, there are times that I feel like I have to "perform" in some way, or meet expectations. Or have to be careful about what I expose, knowing the reactions that will be provoked. It's not as if Chris never puts pressure on me to behave in a certain way, or that he accepts everything I do or never has criticism. But I can be brutally honest with him. And there is great comfort in being able to say exactly what I'm thinking all the time. I can be as goofy as I want to be, as sullen as I want to be, as sappy as I want to be.
Of course, my husband can also be a primary source of my complaints. It's those relationships that can produce and tolerate the full spectrum of emotion that are made to last. Otherwise, you're never scratching the surface.
Spending the last two days exclusively in the company of my husband has had a calming effect. There is no need to meet social expectation. No need to disguise my emotion. No need to pretend to be interested when I'm not. No need to pretend to be excited when I'm not. I can just be and feel exactly as I am at the moment.
Of course, I live in the world. If I'm going to manage to quiet the complaints, I'm going to have to find ways to calm myself amid the storm of hypocrisy and illusion that social interaction creates. I've already spent time limiting interaction with those that bring little benefit to my life. (And I've unintentionally limited interaction with those that do...) And I work to remind myself when people frustrate and annoy me that they have a limited role in my life, and that their actions have little effect on what I do outside of the moment. It has helped. Though I have had to take a few "time outs" and say, "OK, I have to complain to you about this, otherwise I'm going to [have to cuss this person -or- reply to this person's e-mail and get myself fired -or- ____________]. Once I've acknowledged that I'm complaining, and I've gotten it out once, I usually let it go. In the past, I likely would have rehashed the scenario over and over with several friends and innocent bystanders who only wanted to hear "fine" in response to "How are you?"
Baby steps.
1. I really ran for the first time in months today. I mean that I didn't just run, but that I went in with a plan and ran hard for a long (er, longer) time. It was more difficult than it should be, but I felt better than I have in awhile about exercise.
2. I finished a lot of writing projects this week. For pay. I was really productive this week, and it didn't feel like a monumental effort to complete the work.
3. I slept for about 12 hours yesterday.
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