Focusing

So maybe having a safe space to cry out does help. Regardless, it's a bit better today.
Lack of focus lead to boredom and frustration, which lead to P and I snapping at each other about things that normally aren't problems at all, or that we don't perceive as problems. So sometime after I'd written my little silent shout here, she'd said something and I'd said something and she climbed right off the futon and sat down on the floor... Which didn't seem like a good sign, until I realized that she was just doing the stretches that the massage therapist had given her on Friday.

I'm proud of her for taking a night that seemed wasted and useless, a night that we were both going to want back, and making it productive. I helped her with situps and did my own Tai Chi stretches that I'm trying to get into regularly, and we got to bed at a reasonable time. We went to bed happy with each other and with that healthy flush that comes from good exercise - especially good considering that I had seen the night turning out long, cold and angry.

Today I'm up at seven again, this time to get to a dentist appointment and deal with silly bits of paper at my university. Instead of dragging Phina along with the promise of seeing my parents' kittens again, I'm letting her stay home and sleep. She didn't really want to go and knew she wouldn't really be up to going; and I'm doing ever better at recognizing that when people say 'no', even to piddly little things like going out for the afternoon, you can convince them to stop arguing but you can never convince them to be happy about it. It's better for everyone if I let it go and stop trying to force everything to work out according to how I planned.