Digesting with gratitude

Dear patrons of the local Mexican restaurant my family frequents,
Thank you for allowing my husband and me to argue in your midst. Thank you for averting your eyes and not [audibly] questioning our decision to hash it all out in front of our young children. This has been a long journey for us to get to this place in our marriage, where we can be real with each other and show our disagreements instead of forced pleasantries.

Unlike our children, we did not witness many couples who loved each other arguing and then reconciling. Perhaps that is why we do not always fight fair; nonetheless, we are learning, and so are our daughter and two sons.

And thank you, staff, for giving us space so we could have this honest - and heated - discussion. You were attentive but not intrusive. It can be hard to have such tension in your establishment, and I can assure you we plan to return without gloves on. That's what reconciliation looks like, and we do it well because we've had a lot of practice.

Gratefully yours,
A couple still in training

days #22-#25

i've been off the grid, indulging a growing passion:

bob, a team of PHX creatives, & i made a full microshort this weekend.

we've been making films together since we met:

he directs, i write, & we make magic happen.

it's tough working so closely & intensely sometimes,

and we've learned a lot about teamwork through it all.

i guess my passion for making films goes hand-in-hand with my passion for my marriage.

i see them as linked, since they have been since day 1.

i mean, we met because of a video camera!

(for that story, here is the article.)

my trouble is that i can be extremely passionate,

and when something goes awry i don't know how else to react but to smother my flame.

it's like i'm saying,

"if this isn't going to go my way, i'll just pretend i don't care at all."

self-sabotage.

neither films nor good marriages get made that way.

this year, passion means keeping the flame alive even when the wind blows,

the oxygen is all but gone,

and all i want to do is snuff out the wick.

it means fanning the flame & believing that a fire can result.