Once upon a time in a land far, far away...

My partner made the effort to get through Christmas. He played with all the kids, talked to my brother-in-law and only drank half a beer through the whole affair.

It’s really difficult to write a post when things feel so good. I guess it’s just like, for example, keeping up treatment when depression is at bay. So here I am, because it’s good for me and hopefully not tedious for you.

We did have one moment where he was a bit overwhelmed. It was awkward because we were at my sister’s house, miles from civilisation. There was nowhere for him to retreat so he was forced to talk it through with me. (We got a bit of privacy - very hard to find with five little boys running around - by hiding behind the bins in the backyard.)

Anyway, it turned out to be a misunderstanding. He thought more was being demanded of him than actually was. I even got an apology later.

The escalation from fine to stormy is generally very quick. And of course my reactions are almost instantaneous. One minute I’m having a fine old time, everything just dandy. Then I see the signs of an impending downward trend and two minutes later I’m wondering how life got to be so bloody hard and why I’m still hanging around. Very dramatic really.

It took a lot of conscious effort for me not to respond with anger. After all, his response to the situation was unreasonable, illogical. And then of course his anger was directed at me and it felt so unfair. But I really did try to do it differently.

Here are the clunky steps I took in my head to divert the usual progress of things:

1) We’re not always able to be logical.

2) There were a lot of people talking at once and I’ve had a lot of practice at knowing what my family are talking about and how they jump from one thing to another. He hasn’t had the benefit of so many years’ experience. (His family actually wait for one another to stop talking before starting in. Fancy that!)

3) He thought that I was telling him, rather than asking him, to do something that required a lot of effort without taking into account that he was then going to have to do a lot more driving that day. That made him angry. It would have made me angry too if I were under that misapprehension.

So anyway, behind the bins I got a chance to listen to what he was mad at (only made possible by the fact that he was willing to explain it – the Christmas miracle itself it seemed. Why do I keep expecting Mickey Rooney to drop in?) And I tried not to interrupt.

And then (because he was pretty much trapped) I was able to apologise for the misunderstanding and validate his concerns about having energy for driving and then very quickly point out what was happening. I kept it short but nice.

I pretended (this is going to sound odd, I know) that I was talking to someone I didn’t know very well. In my mind that brought the stakes down. Obviously I didn’t want this person to be upset, but nor was my wellbeing dependent on how this turned out.

Anyhow, it worked. That and the combination of circumstances, luck, Chinese herbs? Who knows? Mostly luck I think.

The upshot is that the last couple of days have been as though I've accidentally stumbled into a parallel universe where life is as I imagined it would be, ought to be. Any minute now I might fall out into the more familiar version of reality just as easily a I tripped and landed here. For now though, I’m enjoying this one.

Flo