I get annoyed when truisms turn out to be…true. Sayings like “life doesn’t give you more than you can handle” and “we make plans, and god laughs” make me 1) die a little inside, 2) shake my fist at the sky to curse their accuracy.
The last couple weeks I threw myself into consulting-related work which, similarly to when I’m fully in art-world, left not much of me for anything else. What did I do to recover? I went on a long walk with Wes.
I laughed at my idea of a “walk” while on it. By mile eight of about seventeen, I imagined a would-be dating profile for myself. “Likes long walks in the mountains”. Indeed.
Last time Wes and I did a big effort together, it was a run and we got into a fight about halfway through. Picture us in the increasingly hot sun (the forecast that day was a high of 105F), trying to ascertain which trail we were on, exactly, and also coordinating with our point-to-point pickup for approximate ETA. I had a meltdown and blowup at Wes related to not knowing exactly where we were and therefore feeling anxious at what the rest of the run might hold in store – was it longer than expected? Shorter? Hillier? Hotter, later? I was mad at him for not knowing, myself for trusting him to know, and frustrated for being “in it” with no recourse but to keep going.
The run turned out fine. Great, in fact. We kept going, and it all worked out. But the fact of the fight still remained.
We did a smart marriage thing and debriefed the incident later on that day. What we came to: I rely on Wes too much for navigational beta. Even if it’s more “his route” than my choice, I need to download my own apps and have a sense of what we’re doing so I can be part of decision making before the trip and along the way. For Wes, he needs to understand that I have a lower uncertainty threshold than he does. He’s okay with winging a pretty significant portion of an adventure. I can wing some, but prefer to have a reasonable sense of what I’m doing in advance. Simply put, Wes is okay being uncomfortable in service of exploration. I prefer discomfort in measures I can anticipate and thus know how to mete myself out. Neither way is “right”, although I suspect his approach is probably healthier than mine. He trusts his body and capability more. My preference is rooted in a false sense of control. But, this is our starting point and I and we need to be honest about who we are in order to navigate it.
So, it was significant when on this last big walk together we got into the, as they say, Shit but didn’t get into a fight. And it wasn’t an accident.
We’d chosen the route together in the morning, each of us downloading it and scrutinizing it on our respective apps and comparing our observations. As we walked, we took turns pulling out our phones to decide which direction to take.
After a stream crossing, the trail abruptly disappeared. Wes went high to try and scout the trail to pick it back up; I went low. We reconvened somewhere in the middle on a steep slope, having hacked our way through some lovely dense manzanita and thorny wild rose that schwacked and cut our legs and arms.
I want to make this clear: I abhor bush whacking. Again, with the not liking discomfort thing. Wes has a much higher threshold for it than I do, but later on even he admitted, “that was not great.” That’s Wes-code for, “that super-sucked.”
The difference? In the moment, I didn’t low-key blame Wes for getting us into that situation. I shared responsibility for it because I had been an equal part of decision making every step along the trail thus far. So as we were making decisions on how to get out of it, we did it together. (Enter another annoying truism about healthy conflict being rooted in teamwork and listening to one another. Ugh.)
We emerged from the bushwhack having lost about an hour, with our shoes full of sand, both of us scraped up, and me bleeding (of course) but still motivated to press onward in our big, planned route. So, we did.
Did I feel rested afterward? Spiritually, yes. Physically, I realized that the sinus pressure I was experiencing was likely not just related to days of travel and just-okay air quality from nearby wildfires. Yesterday I took a Covid test just to see, and sure enough I have whatever fun summer variant is running as rampant as aforementioned fires. I feel “fine” – nothing wild, at least not yet. I’ve been quite fatigued and sleeping/napping my days away, blowing my nose from time to time.
My take homes from all this: Wes and I are fighting better. I filled up my emotional/mental rest after my intense consulting push with the long walk. And now I’m getting much needed physical rest. I think all of this culminates in reaching whatever that next level in life brings. Irritating though it is, I do trust that cumulatively these experiences make me more me, and better at/more prepared to live and effectively share life with my husband.
I *am* excited to have more physical energy back so I can get to painting! I’ll post on my Instagram/Facebook stories as soon as I’m back at the easel.
