Interlude 3: My Short Wife Post

Greetings and something.

Perhaps I should clarify my title again.  It refers to the shortness of the post, not the shortness of my wife.  Although... ahem...

As I mentioned last week, this next week we are headed to some place vacationy and warm.  As such, there is a good chance there will be no post next week.  Because of this we have been trying to make sure we have completed all the stuff which need completing before then so we have a stress free adventure.

However, this does mean that the weeks leading up to said trip tend to be extra busy and the opposite of stress free.

For myself, I had four different projects which deadlined this weekend.  These are four projects that are above and beyond my normal work load, however you wish to define that.  Super busy and stressed.  I should know better than to let myself get stressed.  But I don't always learn my own lessons well.

Fortunately (or unfortunately), I wasn't the only one having a less than stellar week.  My wife had a particularly rough week.  Especially at the beginning.

It all started off well.  At the gym this past Sunday, she accidentally ran a half marathon.  "Accidentally" is probably a misleading word.  She intended to run 10 miles.  Which she did.  But then, because she felt so good, she decided to beast-mode it another 3 miles.  And she did.  

13 miles.  One half of a marathon.  Ok, for you nitpicky types, 13.1 is half a marathon.  She did that.  It was just easier to type 13.  But then I went and explained, and pretty much ruined any advantage I had in the efficiency area.  Well done, me.

She accomplished one of her fitness goals.  We were both very excited.  More her than me, since I didn't run 13 miles.  Cause that's just crazy.  But I support her insanity.

She even accomplished another fitness goal just today by doing her Friday run while besting her previous best average split time.  Plus a couple other minor ones today as well.

A great bookended week for her.

But in the middle... holy bad word.  

She had some really random pain, her work shifts were long and full of drama, there were some unexpected money things, some more unexpected food allergy related issues, and a number of other little annoyances that just made her week not amazing.

I am sure I wasn't as supportive as I could have been being strapped in to my own cranky pants as I was.  She was trying to be considerate of me, and I was trying to be considerate of her, and we did ok... but it was a long, bad week.

But something weird happened in the middle of it all that oddly gave me some perspective.

This will probably not make sense to many of you, but here is how it went.

We finally had a few minutes, had been sitting on the couch and there may have been a couple minutes of TV watched.  After shutting down the TV device, my lovely and awesome wife went to the kitchen and dropped off the remote by the TV on the way.  As she bent down to set the controller in it's spot, she wacked her head on the TV.  Not hard.  No damage.  But it happened.

And we've all done stuff like that, right?  It happens.  But this was at the end of the worst day of our bad week.  The worst day for her.  She was hurting, tired, grumpy, and then that just before bed.

Do you know what I did?

I watched it happen and I had a minor epiphany, and as a result, I laughed so hard I thought I might pee a little then black out.

As you might expect, this was not the response she was hoping for.  But, my wife being the amazing trooper she is, eventually started laughing as well.

It was just so ridiculous.  So random.  So pointless.  It was meaningless.

We spent all week getting annoyed and worked up about stuff, and that one little act put it all in perspective. 

It's all transient.  It is meaningless.  The annoyances just don't matter.  In another week or two, they will all be fading memories and we will be on to something else.  We got caught up in the lunacy of the moment and allowed ourselves to be consumed by it.

But in that one moment, we snapped free.  Until next time.  All thanks to my wife's selfless act of taking one in the head for the team.

Don't let the unimportant minor things of life get you all worked up.  They are not constant. They will always move and change.  See the larger picture and find joy in it's beauty.

Have a great week and I'll catch you on the flip side of vacation!