Done yesterday (20090923)

[mdlbear]

0923 We
  * up 6:30ish; W=196.8; drugs, nose, teeth; coffee
  | shoulder hurts more than last night
  * Water day
  * pay bills -- use cc for insurance because it's late :(
  & major progress (I hope) on some of the issues raised over the weekend.
  & Colleen and Marty have made major progress on the sewing corner, based on
    my idea of putting the sewing machine across the front window.
  & "intro to linux" talk with Andrew while a couple of others gave Jared an
    intro to programming languages.
  * bed ~11:30; Snuggle ~2:32

Hmm. After taking out the summaries of a couple of long but private conversations, there isn't a whole lot left. I spent almost all of the evening out in the living room, mostly geeking about Linux and programming languages with various people. A lot of the regulars weren't there, but andyheninger showed up, which is rare. We go way back; he was a coworker at both AMI and Zilog.

The other conversations were mostly about the problems that Colleen was having over the weekend around feeling excluded, and more generally the way she falls apart when things aren't going her way. It's taken me a long time and a lot of help to both understand a little about what her problem is, and to understand that it's her problem, not mine. That was the hardest part -- my natural tendency is to blame myself for anything that goes wrong.

Many thanks to pocketnaomi for finding the perfect word for "the way she falls apart". Once Colleen heard it she understood much more clearly what was going on and what she needs to do about it. I've seen that same look of determination quite recently, when she's been stretching her physical limits. She said something to the effect of: "I have 35 years of bad behavior to unlearn... You'll have to kick me in the ass when I need it. And I'll kick you in the ass about your problems."

So it's a deal. And I have to credit Colleen not only for her understanding and willingness to change, but for giving me the perfect straight line I needed to drive the point home: "You never have that kind of conversation with me." "I'd love to, but I can't -- you keep falling apart."

During the afternoon Colleen and Marty made huge progress re-arranging the sewing corner based on my realization in the morning that it would work better if the sewing machine got moved from the North wall (the window facing the driveway) to the East along the large window that faces the porch and the street. The front window is enough wider that it actually fits, and the rolling storage units that were crowded into the space in front of the built-in shelves are now neatly arranged along the corner wall. Impressive.

Along the way Marty also completely re-arranged the front closet, making it an actual walk-in, with all the contents accessible. And Colleen went through four boxes and sorted the contents. Wow!!

A somewhat tiring day and a little rough in places, but any day when you get a breakthrough on a major problem is a good one. Add the sewing corner and the closet, and it was a very good day indeed.

Comments

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

It's...both wonderful and humbling and daunting when you get that kind of satori, a way to see clearly that you could be doing something much better, and, in retrospect, if only you'd gotten that satori earlier, you could have been doing much better for years! So now you have years of habit to untangle, it's not just the understanding, it's the sheer automaticness of the thing you've been unknowingly doing wrong for years that you have to somehow be aware of and change and create a better habit...

Good luck to you and Colleen both! And perseverance! Stubbornness, even. Undoing that old a habit justifies the application of stubborn determination, as well as easy forgiveness (not ignoring, but understanding) when the habit doesn't vanish overnight. Because no matter how miraculous the progress, being overtired, or in a situation that throws you mentally back to a time when that habit was the best reaction you had, will cause you to slip sometimes. (I'm using the generic "you" here, not necessarily the specific Mandelbear-you. Just in case it wasn't clear from context.)

[mdlbear]

Thanks for the encouragement and advice!

Yes, we both have years of bad habits to overcome; I have about a 2-year head start on Colleen, but then I'm 5 years older so it probably cancels out. You can teach an old dog/bear/cat new tricks, but it's harder.