“I don’t understand you. And why aren’t you understanding me?”

This was the gist of the conversation that started out my morning. My husband and I have been working very hard on our communication skills but we had a momentary lapse of concentration today.

It went a little something like this…you tell me if it sounds familiar:

I texted him something that I thought was good news.
He texted back a joke.
I did not think it was funny and actually thought it was in poor taste. I text back something snotty.
He texts back question marks.
I again text back something passive aggressive.
He calls.
We argue.
I hang up.
He calls back.
He hangs up.
I call him.
We start over.
All is right in the world again.

Man that looks dumb. But, for better or worse, this is our blissful life.

After the five minute exchange of ridiculousness, I thought to myself how misconstrued things can get in the throngs of stress.

Both of us have had a stretch of about 10 pretty stressful days. Not chronic stress, just the kind that your body makes you pay attention to. And this is new for me. I just went about my days paying little or no attention to how I dealt with stress or if I even had it at all. I just thought the irritability, sensitivity and overall bitchiness was part of who I was.

And while this current stress is a little self-inflicted mixed with a little faith leaping, it still comes with it’s share of unsightly reactions. The difference is this time I am hyper-aware. It’s sort of like watching a murder mystery unfold and realizing you knew who the guilty party was all along.

I know now that all of these negative reactions to things (stress) come from fear. That’s it. Fear.

I could talk for days about what I was/am afraid of, but ultimately, I cannot control whatever is going to happen anyway, so fuck it. And worrying about what might happen in a minute or a month or a year steals the joy from right this moment.

And since I’m feeling pretty damn good right now, I think I’ll stay here for a while.