I have been asked (many times in my life (by friends and family (and most likely by enemies (but I don’t know (and I’m now wondering if there is a prize out there (for what I’m doing right now (nested parentheses)))))).

Where was I?

Oh.

I’ve been asked, a lot, if I ever get mad.

Of course I get mad.

And though I would like to tell you that I only get mad when there is injustice in the world (because I am totally like the Pope, as we have discovered previously), this would be untrue.

There are things a lot more pedestrian than war, hunger, natural and man-made disasters that get my goat (love that saying, mainly because I kind of always wanted to have a goat (though I want a chicken more. So let’s change it…)

There are things a lot more pedestrian than all those things that get my chicken.

What stuff?

Well, there’s sink stink.

When you don’t clean your sink, a film develops all over the sides of it and then it smells.

Sink stink.

Also, I don’t like when I begin cooking and then the Nearly Perfect Husband appears out of nowhere and begins cleaning the kitchen and doing the dishes at that very moment, causing me to either side step, or crash into him, constantly while I’m trying to get things from the fridge, and chop things up, and get things into the oven or onto the stove top.

This happens a lot and I have considered staging an accidental chef-knife stabbing or bashing with a just-from-the-oven cookie sheet just to make my point.

Also, he laughs and apologizes while he is doing it. And then he does it again. Like, all the time.

In addition to sink stink and Dinnertime-Dancing-in-the-Kitchen-With-John, I don’t like the sound of any tool – power or otherwise – coming from Granny’s and Grampa’s apartment. That is never good.

Ever.

So these types of things are called stressors in certain circles (like the one I’m in now, because I’m writing to you about it so it is, by definition, my circle).

So, let’s just say that last night there was a stressor that resulted in the Nearly Perfect Husband and I being in a fight.

I like to say ‘in a fight’ because it reminds me of when I was little.  Remember that? When you were ‘in a fight’ with your friend? Which really meant that you were not talking because maybe you accidentally cut her Barbie’s hair (it was an accident!). So even though fists were never thrown and hair was never pulled the other kids would ask you, in hushed tones, ‘Are you and Jackie, like, in a fight?”

‘In a fight’ is a phrase – like ‘make a fort’ – that takes me right back to when I was about eight years old.

And when I feel like I’m ‘in a fight’, I also fight like I am a little kid.

Dirty, with a touch of rank immaturity.

And, coming up on 24 years of marriage this year, the Nearly Perfect Husband and I have our patterns of disagreement and fighting that are comfortable to us.

They don’t last long, but they can be fierce and there can be sighs of frustration and much eye-rolling and head cocking and a huff here or there.

But last night, I broke the pattern.

I wrote my very first love poem to my husband, via text (yes, I am that romantic), to let him know that I love him very much. This was after we bickered and we didn’t get to resolve the issue before he had to bring Self-Proclaimed-Perfect-Boy-Gabe to soccer practice.

As with the epic love poems of Lord Byron,Yeats, Browning(s), Tennyson, and Keats, I wrote from the heart. I used everything I was feeling, and I channeled my emotions into words on a page.

The muse was engaged and in full force.

And here…. here is the result (I am in blue):

 Ya. I know.

Touching, right.

It’s beyond ‘authentic’.

It’s awe-thentic.

I think he was really touched by it. You can tell by his response.

I think it moved him…. that I really connected with him on a whole different level.

Mostly I think this because he’s been perfectly behaved ever since.

Thanks for readin’.

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