Feeling: shuttered
Listening to: Nirvana - Plateau
Reading/Watching: Guide to Teaching Strings (don't ask)

Right after we finished having our big argument (without resolving it), she walked out my door, muttering about the 45-minute drive home. I wasn't even that worried, because I knew we always figure things out later.

Once again, it was a case of spewing out strings of long-overdue thoughts, and the initial icewater shock they tend to bring. I talked, she refuted, and finally we had to separate or we'd start yelling.

From my bedroom, I could hear her screaming out her frustration in the parking lot, which was always the difference between us: she reacted as she pleased, regardless of how other people felt, and would choose whether or not to deal with the backlash of public opinion (usually it fell on the side of 'not'). She cared nothing for whether it made sense to other people. She acted. It made her feel better.

Me, I tamped it down. Crammed it all down into a tight, simmering lump in the base of my stomach. Pressing weight after weight onto a coiling spring, I compressed as much as I could until I couldn't take it any more, and I'd explode with all the necessary (and unnecessary) words. The lucky thing was that they had been so carefully sifted, I knew them for truth. I didn't say things I didn't mean.

Her anger is quick, violent, and unsurprising. Mine is gradual, acidic, and usually a slap across the face.

I was glad to say what I did. I'm tired of lying to make her feel better. I'm not going to delete Satan from my life as I tell it, just to keep that smile on her face. His name is going to occur whenever he happens. And she is going to have to deal.

There are times I really don't understand how the two of us work together at all, ever.

But then she called from the road, and fifteen minutes of conversation made us quieter, tired from being poised to spring. No one apologized. No one cried. But we came to an agreement: we will be honest again. No more editing for controversial content. That stage is over.

And I really do understand how the two of us work together, always. It's the ease of years of practice.

Comments? 2 so far...
Not a Diaryland member? Sign the Guestbook.