I need a lot of emotional support.  I am most definitely NOT low-maintenance.  I know this.

And yet, I get frustrated when I don’t get everything I need from my husband.  I know, I know, at thirty years old and on my second marriage, I should know better than anyone that your husband can’t be everything to you.  I screwed up a marriage with great potential because I didn’t know that in my soul.  I’m trying to learn.

I have a cushy job but one I struggle with every day.  I work from home which isn’t the best situation for my personality.  I work on strategic projects which is a nice way of saying I am supposed to accomplish the things nobody has time for.  I am expected to succeed through influence which is a euphemism for selling things to people they don’t want, but instead of ending up with some thing, they get a time-sucking project.  I’m not saying my role or my projects don’t have value, just that they aren’t in the “most important things” path.  I’ve lived my whole career in the middle of the “most important things” path.

Two weeks ago a little thing I did on the side turned into a much bigger thing.  I had a lot of fun, remembered what it is about me that is valuable, made life a little easier for a lot of people.  These are good things.  So when a new role popped up that seemed tailor-made for me, I raised my hand and asked for more information.

It didn’t pan out.

But raising my hand started a series of events that is culminating in a very big, very visible, very difficult new challenge.  I am very excited.  But because I am me, I am trying to balance that excitement with worry, still believing that worrying will keep me from seeming stupid or being disappointed.

I’m not terribly sure I can succeed, not 100%, not exactly to the result we think we want now.  But I know now that you can’t predict the future.  Life is about iterations, not waterfall (sorry, had to go project manager nerdy there).  We do the next step as best as we can and then we assess… then we do the next step and we assess. 

And I can do the next step.  I am perfectly suited to the next step.  I have lived my career in ways that have clearly prepared me for the next step.  God, I love when life unfolds before me.

But emotionally, I’m still a mess.  I struggle (have always, actually) with confidence, always feeling like an imposter who is about to be proved dumb.  My skills are “soft” – I’m good at things like negotiating and facilitating and racing toward a goal.  I can’t say I can program in this language or built that thing or taught this way.  I don’t manage people directly, haven’t had full responsibility for a program, generally learn something well enough to know I’ve done it before moving on.

As this has been happening, I’ve been trying to talk with my husband about it all because I need support. I’ve been unloading all of my worries and concerns and feared inadequacies in the unspoken hopes that he will remind me that I’ve made it this far because I know something.  I want him to help me find the confidence I can’t find on my own.  I want him to give me a pep talk, pat me on the butt, and send me back into the game.

Instead, I’ve succeeded in worrying him.  Joey hasn’t been with me through the building of my career.  Since I’ve known him I’ve been in a series of cushy remote periphery-type jobs, the kind where I make my own hours and meet friends for lunch and whine about how I don’t know what to do next.  This me is the only me he knows.

This other me, the one who gets things done, works long hours, arm-twists and browbeats and squeaks in just before the deadline – he doesn’t know that woman.  He knows she exists or else I wouldn’t have ended up in these cushy jobs, but he hasn’t seen it.

I know this.

So I worry that he doesn’t prop me up and send me back in because he doesn’t think I can do it.  I see the worry lines between his eyes when I mention my latest worry.  I ask if he thinks this is a bad idea and he says, Yes, maybe, perhaps, but he’s not sure why.  He sees my professional life through my admittedly fcuked up lens because he doesn’t know any better.

I am finally at the point where I can see what I’m doing.  I want him to have so much faith in me that I can survive without faith in myself.  I relied on my ex-husband to believe in me.  If someone as wonderful as he believed in me, I must be worthy, right?

It’s too much pressure for a husband.  He won’t – can’t – have perfect faith and confidence in me.  He’s human, too, and just like I worry about our future when he says his place of business is struggling, he’s going to worry when I tell him I’m doing something risky.  How can he judge risk objectively when I can’t?  All he knows of my corporation is what he hears from me.

And now we come to the signs.

As I was driving home from lunch with my husband – where I expressed my frustration that I wasn’t getting the support and confidence from him that I needed, I remembered this quote from the NY Times article on the Obama’s marriage (emphasis is mine):

Michelle Obama accepted that she was not going to have a conventional marriage, that her husband would be away much of the time. “That was me, wanting a certain type of model, and our lives didn’t fit that model,” she told me in an Iowa lunchroom in the summer of 2007. “I just needed the support. It didn’t have to be Barack.”

I remembered one scene on an episode of “Private Practice” where a world-class surgeon tells a would-be surgeon: “You are a surgeon or you are not.  You decide.  But you don’t waffle.”  {paraphrased}

I watched the latest two episodes of “Grey’s Anatomy” last night.  One surgeon is a great, intelligent, knowledgeable doctor, but she doesn’t believe in herself, and she makes a simple mistake that gets her fired.

I read “NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children’>NurtureShock," where the authors share studies showing that kids praised for their intelligence rather than effort struggle with self-esteem and confidence, often believing that failure is evidence that they aren’t so smart after all rather than just something everyone goes through.

And suddenly I feel better, stronger, more capable.

That was me, wanting a certain type of model, and MY LIFE doesn’t fit that model.  The more someone tries to prop me up, the less confidence I have in myself.  It’s too easy for me to project, to externalize, to blame someone else.  So I’m going to have to find that confidence within myself.

{As I finished typing that sentence, my boss pinged me to ask me to jump on a call with a very large customer, a call where he introduced me as the person who was going to fix everything – to the customer, his boss, and all the execs on the call… that’s only loosely exaggerated. 

I found my confidence just in time.}

Please read: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/magazine/01Obama-t.html?ref=magazine

We’ll discuss tomorrow.  So many thoughts swirling through my head, not least of which is: Yes, everyone does have their ups and downs, good marriages or not.

Unlike the wife who smiles tightly and insists everything is fine, Michelle sent a clear series of distress signals not only to her husband but to everyone around her. “Barack and I, we’re doing a lot of talking,” she would say when asked how she was holding up.

And…

(Judging from interviews, more than a few Chicagoans knew that Michelle once openly resented what her husband’s political career had cost her, so he may have been wise to raise the issue before anyone else.)

And finally…

“If my ups and downs, our ups and downs in our marriage can help young couples sort of realize that good marriages take work. . . .” Michelle Obama said a few minutes later in the interview. The image of a flawless relationship is “the last thing that we want to project,” she said. “It’s unfair to the institution of marriage, and it’s unfair for young people who are trying to build something, to project this perfection that doesn’t exist.”

Yowza.  This may be a multiple post discussion.

High on the list of things I never thought I’d do: I sometimes dress a certain way because my husband likes it.  When Jenna mentioned that she and her husband have veto power over each other’s clothing, it was taken as evidence that he was controlling.  We’ll see if my readers respond similarly.

In preparation for lunch with my beloved and his peeps today, I wore something I knew he’d appreciate: a black t-shirt with semi-tight jeans tucked into my Uggs.  And my hair’s in a ponytail, a concession I make when I don’t feel like washing and drying my hair but still want my hubby to think I’m hot.

I’ve been thinking about this for days, since I first tucked my jeans into my boots, in fact.  See, I think jeans tucked into boots is just a little tiny bit teeny-bopper.  I am so far from that age that I’m slightly embarrassed to do anything that hints of teeny-bopper lest random people roll their eyes at me.  But my husband remarked casually (well, he thought he was being casual) about how all the girls at the dog park had their jeans tucked into their boots. 

Me: “Hmmm.  How interesting!”  <amused at his attempts to be casual while checking out girls>

Him: “Yea, I know.  Don’t you think that’s interesting?” <staring>

Me: “Yes, very interesting.” <arching an eyebrow>

Him: “Oh.  I mean, you’re the hottest girl here.  Your butt is way better than hers.  Or hers. Or…” <notices that both of my eyebrows are arched now and shuts up>

So the next time I wore tuckable jeans, I went ahead and tucked them in.  He was very happy.  Ridiculously happy.  The kind of happy I get at silly little things he does that make me feel good, like when he comes up behind me and gives me a hug for no reason (and it doesn’t end in a dirty innuendo, which is rare).

And then I wondered, where does this fit into my personal view of independence and partnership?  The popular answer is that only I should get to decide what I wear and look like.  The problem with this view is that he has to look at me, right? 

And he doesn’t mind looking at me in my old jeans and comfy sweatshirts just like I don’t mind looking at him in the ugly retro shoes he loves.  But I do love to see him in this outfit. 

{Yes, he was posing.  He does that when faced with a camera.  Or mirror.  Or when I tell him he looks handsome.}

He looks exactly like I like a man to look: rugged and handsome and sweet and casual.  So I tell him that every time and when he’s trying to make me happy, he wears this.

It seems fair, then, that when I’m trying to make him happy, I put my hair in a ponytail and tuck my jeans into my boots.  It’s not any different than dressing a certain way to go on a date, right?  I would rather have him looking at me than at some girls at a dog park, this I know for sure.

And yet, the little voice in the back of my head ponders the appropriateness of letting my hair grow out, wearing a certain shirt, or tucking my jeans into my boots just because my man likes it.  The part of me that thinks I should be in control of my life (I am woman!) is fighting it out with the part of me that’s learning to be a partner.

Barring a good reason not to (even a little discomfort in my gut), I’ll keep adapting my attire sometimes to make my husband happy.  How I dress isn’t terribly important to me (this is obvious if you see what I wear out in public) so I’m more than willing to tweak a bit.

Thoughts?

Once upon a time, I thought to be married was to never be alone, or rather, lonely.  Later, with the glitter firmly knocked off the fairytale, I found that loneliness couldn’t be avoided.  It’s like the rain.  You walk through it with your chin up and you little get a wet because the only way to stay dry is to miss out on life.

And while I’m not lonely – far from it, in fact, and in the midst of one of those “completely head over heels in love” weeks – I’m not wrapped up in my husband, either.  He’s in the living room watching some really loud action flick at full volume (is that a man thing?); I’m in our bedroom catching up on TV shows he doesn’t like (girl stuff like “Brothers and Sisters,” “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Private Practice”). 

For the first time in my adult life, I sometimes choose to be alone… and I’m happy.

I’ve been happy and alone before, just as I’ve been happy and not alone, but given the choice, I’d always choose “not.”  I like to be with people.  Okay, not people in general, though I do enjoy that on occasion.  I like to be with my man, have chosen that over all else except work.

But lately we’ve been doing this thing more often, this thing where my laptop and I (and Frank!) hang out in the bedroom while he and the dogs watch horribly loud movies in the dark living room.  I was worried that we’d been spending too much time living next to each other – I sometimes wonder if worrying is my hobby – so I watched TV with him earlier today and all evening last night, but tonight this felt right.

Call it growing up if you will, but I love him just as much as if he were in here with me and he loves me just as much as if I were watching that loud movie (seriously, full freaking volume), but we like each other just a little more when we get to do our thing all alone.  I don’t have to worry that he’s rolling his eyes; he doesn’t have to deal with me wincing as my ear drums explode every single time something explodes on screen.

We’re happy.

I send him text messages telling him I love him.  He gives me smooches when I go out there to say hello.  And then we retreat back to our separate corners to watch mindless TV and be good to ourselves for just a little while until we’re ready to be good to each other.

Bummer there’s no fireplace in here.

{Don’t mind Beau’s big fat head.  He came to give me a smoochy just as I clicked the shutter.  We love the big lug anyway.  Note: no animals were harmed in the making of this photo, though I can’t say the same for the man and his arm hair.}

Twister Tuesday has been a little bit harder* than Bright Side Blogging, perhaps because the goal is less clear.  I mean, THE GOAL** is clear, but the goal of focusing on the whole thing isn’t.  What is success, exactly?  Is success doing it (ahem, playing**) more often?  Is success enjoying the game more?  Or is success merely starting an online dialogue about something we don’t talk about too often?

I’m not sure.

What I do know is that breaking down our game strategy and figuring out what does (and doesn’t) need improvement has been helpful to me.  So many of my frustrations are self-invoked, so thinking through them in a focused way is good.

Here’s what I know so far: warming up is good, necessary and fun; blogging while drinking wine leads to very long and meandering posts; my mind doesn’t empty easily. 

The universe has conspired to send me a few very obvious clues, one of which is that change happens at the micro level.  I’m an ops person by nature, always looking for the big solution to problems, the brilliant new idea or clear and consistent process by which all the ills of the world (my world, anyway) will miraculously disappear.  Essentially, I believe in magic.  But between reading “Blink” and swooping in and out of a week-long Agile/ Scrum training, I’m learning something new.

What I’m learning is that I’m already doing things differently in the right direction: I’m making small changes that affect my life in a big way.  I’m looking for the bright side, smiling more and sniping less, having faith that listening to the signs and appreciating my life will get me where I need to be.  I’m choosing to hope. 

So instead of looking for a fix for this Twister thing, I’m just doing one thing at a time.  I wasn’t sure how to calm my mind, but when I really thought about it, I only had a few options: 1) ask my husband for help by talking to me; 2) find some music; 3) play music in my head.  The goal, as you can see, was to replace the pragmatic narrator in my head with a more sexy and appropriate one.

But then I focused on warming up – and my illogical reticence – and the voice took care of itself.  I don’t remember being annoyed by the voice, so it must not have been distracting.  The voice was a symptom of the bigger issue, which was that my whole self (not just the voice in my head) wasn’t immersed in the moment, living in the now, involved in the whole Twister situation.  I didn’t have my game face on**.

Today’s lesson, then, is that I have to keep digging to find the real problem.  It wasn’t the voice, it was the brain behind the voice, the brain that was trying to tell me that I needed to respect myself enough to insist on what I needed.

At work we talk about “five why’s.”  When you’re presented with a problem, ask why – five subsequent times.  By the fifth, you are much more likely to get to the REAL problem.

Now I just need to figure out how to fall asleep soon after playing Twister.  My hubby passes right out (is that a man thing?) but my heart rate’s up and I’m wide awake.  For hours. 

Not good.

*No pun intended.

**Pun definitely intended.

Well, I survived the red-eye with only a stiff neck and a bit of grumpiness.  Not bad, not bad.  I did manage to release the Styrofoam contents of my neck pillow all over the airport waiting room when I ripped off the tag.  Oops.  I also sat next to Mr. Chatty McChatterston and had to pull one of those bitchy nod-my-head-then-obviously-turn-away-to-read-my-book-mid-conversation things to extricate myself from land of a thousand questions about my company and whether I know someone who used to work for some part of some company we bought (I work for a HUGE company, so, no, definitely no – it’s like saying you’re from Chicago and having people ask if you know Mark, who used to live there five years ago but then moved to Atlanta; his neighbor was Mary?).

I read “The Tipping Point” – which wasn’t nearly as good as “Blink” – and sample chapters of five books which I now want.  But look at today’s horoscope:

The key to your happiness right now has everything to do with money — but probably not in the way you think. It’s not about getting more — it’s about learning how to better manage what you already have. Re-examine your savings situation and your budget. And if you don’t yet have a budget, start working on one! Break down your expenses, and you’ll quickly see some easy, painless ways to spend less and save a lot more.

Glad I ordered the camera lens yesterday!

We had a magical day yesterday, one of those days when I remembered exactly why I fell in love with my husband, one so satisfying that I wasn’t even sad when it ended.

He read “The Five Love Languages” last weekend, declared me multi-lingual, then did a bang-up job of showing that the understood what he read.  Sigh.  ‘Twas awesome.

Even though I knew he was holding my hand and touching my back and giving me smooches because he read a book – and not because he loved me so much in that moment he just had to show me – it worked.  I felt loved.  And the reality is that he does love me, but he shows it by spending seven hours splitting logs so we can have lots of firewood.  He brings me coffee in the morning.  He drags his groggy self out of bed to see why the dogs are barking at 2:00 am.  He loves me… but the hand-holding is the clincher.

We went leaf-peeping but we skipped the tourist-heavy south and went north to Norris Dam instead.

How have I not known to want to stay here?

Current plans are to spend the night in a cabin (which my husband says aren’t really cabins because they have electricity but I say are exactly my definition of cabin – otherwise it’s a glorified tent, no?) NEXT WEEKEND.  I’m so excited.

Of course, between then and now, we need to clear a path to the clearing for our first ever big fall bonfire this Friday.

See Beau’s tail sticking up above the whatever-the-green-stuff is in the picture below? 

That was this, just this past May:

We have a lot of work to do.  I see chainsaws in my future.  Or Joey’s, anyway.

How was your weekend?

Do you ever have moments when you think, “How on earth does someone who didn’t grow up like me get through life?”

I’m sitting on the floor in my hotel room with a little tiny needle and a little tiny length of thread from a little tiny mending kit.  I brought pants with me, great fabulous gray wool pinstriped pants from a previous life where I actually spent that much on clothing, pants with a hem that had fallen a couple years ago.  I love them, though, and one of the benefits of gaining a little bit of weight is that they fit, so I brought them with me thinking that I might need a break from my black work wardrobe.

Today is Friday.  I’ve worn every other outfit I brought, from the “I’m a freaking WOMAN” skirt and heels to the “I’m one of you folks” pants and sweater, and I would have probably worn something comfy (hi, red-eye tonight) except for this:

Looks count today — in terms of work, love and self-esteem. Dress for the job you want to have five years from now, and keep an eye toward appealing to the cutie in your life — spruce up your plumage and try a new style. Looking good can’t make you happy, but it can certainly give you a pleasant surprise when you catch your reflection in a store window. You need to remind yourself how attractive you are — once you fully realize this fact, everyone else will too.

That’s my horoscope for today and when my horoscope says to dress for the job I want to have five years from now, I take it seriously.  So seriously, in fact, that I’ve been thinking about what to wear today since I read it yesterday.

So much for my plans to wear comfy pants and a dowdy sweater.

Remember this post from Monday?  And did I mention that last Friday’s horoscope said that I’m more valuable than I think, more visible than I think, and that my bosses have something in mind for me that’s much bigger than I think?  And then after the discussion about the job I wanted, I found out two days ago that they have a bigger project for me?  Much bigger?  Like, by a factor of ten bigger?

This girl no longer ignores her horoscope (well, I never did, but certainly not after that).

I have spent the past two days worrying (in my head – my gut feels fine about this) that I’m being set up to fail, that I’m not capable, that someone somewhere has a seriously overestimated sense of my abilities.  So I read this horoscope and I think it’s a sign that I’m much more attractive – in a professional sense – than I’m giving myself credit for.  And I feel better.

Back to the hotel room floor.  I’m sitting on it basting the hem of my gray wool pinstripe pants because in five years I want to be wearing kick-ass pants and a perfectly-fitting Italian wool blazer with my $6.95 H&M tank top underneath.  That’s the job I want: the one where I feel as in control and grown-up as this outfit makes me feel today, but where I still get to be me underneath it all.

And as I’m basting – threading the needle, knotting the thread, quickly tacking the cuff up at the seams and then flying through a series of big-little-big-little stitches to hold the whole thing in place – I’m thinking, “How would someone who didn’t grow up with a mom like mine, a mom who sews for hours at a time for fun, a mom from whom we learned how to baste a hem correctly through osmosis, how would that person handle this?”

I stop, close my eyes, take a deep breath, and thank the universe and my mom for giving me this life, one where I can read a horoscope and make my day work exactly how I want it before heading home to my sweet hubby and nutty animals.

First, thank you so much for weighing in on our “death spiral.”  Y’all are the best.  Unfortunately, this little thing called work has interfered with my ability to really think about them, so I’ll have to owe you a response next week.

I’m still in Seattle, scheduled to go home tonight on my first red-eye ever.  It leaves Seattle at 11:00 pm, gets into Chicago at 5:00 am, and I finally get home at 8:30 am.  Have any hints for surviving that with a modicum of grace?  My mom suggested one of those donut neck pillow things.

So I’m going shopping this morning to H&M for the tank tops I wear almost daily, then back to my room to check-out before 1:00 pm (gulp) before finally heading into work for an afternoon of meetings and a team happy hour.

I can’t wait to be home.  Being in the thick of it all is fun, but I’ve wished every day that I could come home to my husband and crazy gaggle of animals. 

I miss my husband’s silliness. I hope he doesn’t kill me for posting these, but I love, love, LOVE the series.  He was singing and dancing… obviously.

I miss Frank (the cat) and his funny personality. 

I miss this goofy dog,

this handsome one,

and my favorite man.

I miss the slower pace of my evenings and (dare I say it) the satisfaction of working on the bonus house.

I can’t wait to get home. 

Oh!  Any recommendations for books to read?  I have a bunch of work-related books (sort of unrelated: “Blink” was fantastic) but I need some lighter reading.

source

Saturday, we fought all day long.  All day.  We took a few long breaks – often in surprisingly companionable silence to work on the Other House – but mostly we spent the day arguing.  I cried.  He cussed.  We went to bed angry.  It was a real fight.

But this morning my husband woke me up, handed me a cup of coffee, and informed me that I’d been wrong and I am, in fact, multi-lingual.  He said this with chin up, jaw set and a glint of amusement in his eyes.

Whaaaaa?  Whew.  Our fight was over.

Our biggest disconnect lately has to do with what I need from him so that I feel loved and supported.  I’m pretty good at giving him what he needs; he will confirm this almost anytime (just not mid-fight).  He, on the other hand, is very male: he thinks about himself and what he needs, and while I don’t doubt that he loves me and is loyal to me, he doesn’t pay attention to the little things that make me happy or miserable.

Look, I know I sound very bitchy and nitpicky.  Heck, you might even call me petty.  But when he worries more about the people behind us in line at a drive through than me – me, the one putting cream and sugar into his hot lidless coffee over my lap – well, I get annoyed.  When that happens many times over the course of a week, especially a week where I’ve made a special effort to be generous to him… let’s just say a fight is inevitable.

So I spend too much time crying and too little time just shutting up.  He ducks his head as if my words are quite literally raining down upon his head.  The more I say, the less he hears.  Eventually he shuts me out completely, I get pissed and decide I’ll stop needing him, and we go to sleep.  {To be more specific, he goes to sleep and I say awake surfing the ‘net for something – anything! – to distract me from my snit.}

I’m not sure how else to handle our typical death spiral, but I’m looking for ideas.  Maybe you have some? Here’s the problem: when faced with something uncomfortable, my husband avoids, ignores, puts off and punts as long as possible.  I’m left feeling like the only grown-up in this relationship, the one stuck figuring out which health care benefits make the most sense and whether the dog needs to go to the vet. 

It happens anytime he feels like I know more than he does, and rather than hear me out and try to learn, he instead seems to give up and push it away.  He dislikes my tone (“too direct”), my demeanor (“too direct”) and my body language (you guessed it: “too direct”).  But in my defense, I am as casual and laid back in all three as I can manage.  I’m leaning back in my favorite recliner, arms at my sides, upbeat voice and open-ended questions.  I don’t think it’s me; I think he just doesn’t handle discomfort very well.

I don’t think I’m willing to try to change those anymore, to be honest.  I could be singing and dancing about healthcare with a full orchestral back-up and it wouldn’t matter.

I’m often stunned by how much I didn’t know about relationships before this one.  Until pretty recently I thought being married meant you’d never have to be lonely, but whoo, boy, that has not been true for me.  In fact, because my husband is having to work through the reality of marriage to a much greater degree than I am (been there, done that… different man, yes, but the whole “sharing of every damn thing” is something I’ve come to terms with), I’m forced to be much more independent than I’d like.  It’s probably good for me.

When we were engaged and planning our wedding, I wanted him to be involved.  My first husband was very opinionated and without realizing it, I expected the same of my fiance.  Unfair but completely natural, unfortunately.  Looking back I see I should have just planned for the things I cared about and let him off the hook when he said, “Whatever.”  But I wanted a full partner in everything, so I harassed and cajoled and ultimately lost my shit until he got involved – or I stopped trying.

Is this that?  Being partners doesn’t mean doing everything together, just like “group work” in college (I hated it) shouldn’t mean you have to think together.  It’s okay to bring your strengths and contributions together into a cohesive unit near the end.  I guess we just need to figure out the details.

This lack of propensity for Twister is my own fault, really.  Well, okay, not entirely my fault.  My husband’s easily reset expectations certainly contribute, as does my inability to shut my mind off (you can read about that here).

But what did we learn from Bright Side Blogging and the debt snowball?  That seemingly small changes in my own outlook make huge differences in our life.  So in keeping with that theory, I’ve been thinking about what I can do to improve our Twister situation.

The most obvious change is to spend more time warming up.  I take full responsibility for not requiring us to do this, often choosing to just hop right on the board so we can get the game over with.  Worse, I’ve been known to endlessly discuss rules ahead of time: who goes first, who gets to be blue, how we handle tie-breakers.  Buzzkill.

Instead, I’m requiring myself to insist on a full warm-up before playing.  Not sure how to broach the subject with my husband, I found it more effective to show him instead.

So when he wanted to move to the board, I suggested that instead we start with our mouths.  (Yes, hi, I’m mixing metaphors.)  And when a half minute he tried it again, I asked that we stick with the kissing again.  And when a minute later he tried again… you get the picture.  I didn’t get annoyed, didn’t whine about rushing to the finish, didn’t do or say anything one teensy bit negative.  I just kept asking if we could keep doing what we were doing because I liked it so much and it was getting me so warmed up.

We had the best Twister session we’d had in a long time.  By the time we finished, I was completely out of breath, completely worn out, and completely relaxed.  And it had almost nothing to do with the actual game and everything to do with the warm up.

Maybe that’s the trick: set my own expectations and then hold myself to them.

Are you not insisting on something that could improve your Twister game?