Last weekend, I scrubbed the kitchen floor, dusted the whole house, wiped down baseboards, swept and vacuumed. I changed the couch cover. I cleaned the bathroom. I did laundry. I put clean sheets on the bed. I cleaned out the filling cabinet (and found Chris’s certificate of ordination because of course). I cleaned the vacuum! I roasted four pans of tomatoes. I made a batch of breakfast quinoa for the week. I made a vegetarian Bolognese sauce to go with cauliflower gnocchi. I mopped the kitchen floor again when my tonic water exploded all over me and the kitchen. I ate boiled okra with stewed tomatoes, cannelloni beans (no one had black-eyed peas at the farmer’s market) and smoked trout. I wrote in my fortune cookie journal. I went to an art exhibit. I visited the foot spa place. Then, I sorted prints. I cleaned out a desk drawer and organized all of my camera stuff to fit neatly in that drawer. I made a spread sheet of photos I want to print for a showing, along with the sizes I want to print of each, how much it’s going to cost to print and how much it’s going to cost to frame each print. Then I printed out that spreadsheet and stuck it on the wall at my desk.

It was a pretty productive weekend. I did every thing on my mental list of things that I wanted to do.

I did not ask for a weekend to myself. Michael read my entry about wanting time for myself and he put together a plan to spend a weekend with his moms. This prompted a discussion of making this a thing that happens more than once a year. We also talked about asking for things we need. And when I say “we”, I mean me. I need to ask for the things I need for myself. I told Michael that I didn’t think that this was something I could ask for myself for a number of reasons. I didn’t want to hurt feelings. He has a way of saying “okay’ to things in a tone of voice that makes me think he’s not really okay with doing what I asked. I worried that if I asked for time alone, I would get a dejected, sad ‘okay’ response. Then I’d feel selfish for wanting time alone. Michael doesn’t have to ask for his alone time weekends because I instinctually just give them to him and because it feels like a normal thing to do. We have vastly different relationship backgrounds.

Chris and I often went on separate vacations. He would meet Traci for coffee and stay out late at least once a week. We had our own things without each other and we didn’t feel the need to keep tabs on each other. So having to ask for time alone just wasn’t necessary. I don’t know about all of Michael’s relationships, but from what I’ve heard, there were trust issues. In his world, if you were out late with a member of the opposite sex it probably meant that you were up to something shady. Just as we are learning to navigate around all of that baggage, we are also having to learn how to navigate communicating with different personalities, mindsets, egos. And I don’t mean ‘egos’ in a negative sense. We all have egos. Read some Freud. Communicating effectively with another human being is complicated at the best of times, let alone during the stressful times when effective communication is most important. Sometimes it feels like I am navigating the open seas with only the stars, no compass and I’m terrible with astronomy.

I am coming to terms with the idea that in my need to communicate my wants and feelings, I might ruffle some feathers. I can’t control how someone is going to react, but I can be respectful and mindful in my words. The other’s feelings are just as valid as mine are and there will be times when we just agree to disagree. I am grateful for my weekend on my own. I am grateful for all the things I accomplished in that time. More importantly, I am grateful for learning to ask for what I need. I am grateful for each lesson in communication.