Day 2: The Big Fight on the Very Stressful Day

Day 2:

Blue mountain coffee in the morning.

Orientation at the office. It was not the most fun I've had in my life. You see, I'm a HIGH D personality, which means I like information to be giving to me succinctly with no additives, quick bullet points. My information should look like a powerpoint, not a lecture. Yet, orientation was given by various people, most of whom filled my information with additives. I found this to be quite stressful. Most often, I'm capable of being patient. But after two hours, I was on the verge of a breakdown. 

Now one of my problems here was, I had a checklist. When I have a checklist, my brain says "CHECK ALL THE THINGS!!!!!" And wants to win doing it, which means do it as quickly as possible. This is not possible with information additives. More stress.

The best part was finance. I went in and told Kathy that I needed to be oriented. She told me that she didn't know how to do that, so I looked at my checklist. "OK, tell me how to ____________" and she did. "Great, tell me how to _________" and she did. And we went through 1/4 of the checklist with no additives and in 5 mins. It was beautiful. 

In the afternoon, I worked on some excel documents and meal planning for the bush. But I went home exhausted and worn.

Now my otherwise amazing husband has this flaw. He's not good at being sick. He's one of those sick people. The people who like to be coddled in the their sickness, but when they don't feel like they're being coddled enough, remind people that they are sick, and tend to be slightly more exaggeratory of the circumstances. Now some such people are such people sick or well. Luckily my husband only has such tendencies when he's sick or hurting.

Now otherwise amazing me has this flaw. I'm not good at being tolerant. "Bemoaning how sick you are doesn't make you any less sick so shut up and stop making me sick!"

As you can see, it's a great combination. Luckily Jacob isn't sick or hurt often. 

Now my husband has this sore on the inside of his mouth. The kind that hurts if your drink is too acidic or your food too salty or whatever. Well, he was eating passionfruit and I suggested he suck the sweet snot like substance off the sours seeds and spit the seeds.

Well my husband must have had a stressful day too because he was particularly …insistent about his pain.

"Ow!"

Oh, yeah Jacob has that sore. I guess spitting wasn't all together pleasant…

"I can't! I can’t suck the seeds out! It hurts my mouth!!" with a very serious and intense face. (Thinking about a 5 yr old doing this is so adorable, it makes me laugh out loud. Alas, my husband is not 5 and so that was not my response.)

Now, I'm already unsympathetic in these situations. Any sympathy I did have for the suffering promptly evaporates upon what we call "milking it." And let's add to this: my stress. And my sleep deprivation. I woke at 4. Did NOT get a nap. And am so tired an hour will pass and it will be bedtime.

But I tried. I said jokingly so it didn't come off as attacking, practically laughing the words out of my mouth, "You are the most irritating sick person I have ever met!! Except! My sister, Andrea. When she was younger, she would lie on the couch with a belly ache and flail her arms and legs wildly, moaning loudly, just so we wouldn't forget that she was sick! And I would just think, "That's not making you feel any better, probably worse, now be quiet so I can watch TV!""

My objective here was "Honey, you're annoying me. You kind of remind me of OMG HERE’S A FUNNY STORY ABOUT ANDREA ISN’T THAT HILARIOUS!?!?!?” And there's no reason to reply to the first part because I already did a segue away from it!

But Jacob didn't take my segue and got defensive which made me livid, because I'm having a really stressful day!!!!

When Jacob saw my very intense anger, he apologized for getting defensive. (Please refer to Gottman concerning the gravity of the offense of being defensive. It's very bad!)

But I was past I'm-sorry-fixes-all. I'm angry and I've had a very stressful day!!

So I wanted to do something to completely ignore  Jacob, at whom I angry. So I go to grab my Kindle to read. It is dead. Despite the fact that it was fully charged before I left the US and off until that moment. It was dead. I threw down the kindle in disgust. And decide I want coffee. So I go to make coffee. We have a this annoying electric kettle, that doesn’t seem to tell you when it’s done. So I had lukewarm coffee with a ton of grounds. (I don't know how that happened. I used the french press like always… I don't know.) OK. So I go to take a shower. THE HOT WATER HEATER HAD BEEN TURNED OFF!!!!!WHY?!?!?! WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?!?!?!?!?  So I storm out of the bathroom (oh and of course my little angry cloud has gotten bigger and bigger at each frustrating inconvenience. Do you remember Hurricane Isabel? Yeah, if she saw me coming, she would step back) So I go back to my coffee, to see if the grounds had settled so it would be drinkable. They had not. (I was told that in a tin can, you could knock the side of the can with a spoon and the coffee grounds would drop to the bottom "as if stunned". I tried this. It didn't work.) So, in my anger, I went to rip open the screen door. Locked. (Ironic, because I think the door being locked when Jacob wanted it unlocked caused him frustration that his pain added to that resulted in the melodramatic display that brought on this hurricane. And then he locked the door causing me more frustration. (he QUICKLY apologized for locking it)) So I grab the key. Unlock the door. Replaced the keys on the table. Aggressively throw my coffee out in disdain. Retrieve the key. Relock the door. I then went to the room and this hurricane’s rain came forth. Menawhile the shower was dripping in such away that would result in my loss of sanity.

Jacob came in after a while. Sat in silence. Then started rubbing my back. I tensed in rejection. I'm still angry at him. But he didn’t notice. And it felt good. And I figured nursing a grudge never got me anywhere. So I confided in my husband, listing the things that had gone wrong since ignoring him had begun.

And then he left.

He stopped the drip, brought me ground-free coffee, and alerted me as to when the hot water had returned.

As I said, he has that flaw, but otherwise, he's amazing.

The number one reason missionaries leave the field is interpersonal problems. It's super important to forgive and choose to not stay angry and to have open communication. And to be aware. Stressful days result in fighting. Maybe some completely alone time is appropriate on those days. Avoid circumstances that often lead into sin.