Beagling

What is the best thing? What do dreams try and tell me? What boths and neithers will fill my world, or make it just as empty? What motivations do I want, do I have, do I need? Do I need? I find inspiration, but not where I want to, What makes me a better person? What is better? What is best? What I want for myself, on what level? How do I get it? How do I know what I've lost? How do I know if I'm losing? I'm not such a risk-taker, should I keep what I have, birds in hands, things in bushes? How long can I keep crawling side to side?

You pushed inside me
Loosened something
Shook me up
Smeared me

anywhere

you take me apart
derail my heart
wake me up
shake me

anywhere

i can't help touching
i sit and stare
curly hair
blue eyes

ANYWHERE

maybe it will rain



(months later....)

and then the rain came, it was hard and fast and loud and wonderful, I sat naked watching, wet and waiting for the lightning bolts that never came. Went beaglewalking in the morning, to smell the smells that are missing in the dry heat. But... it wasn't what I thought it would be. Dormant stenches activated by the wet.. stale dust, and dirt, and rotten garbage, stale urine. Maybe more rain would help. Or maybe just make mud. A faint frangipani, some eucalyptus...

it seemed ok, a vacation, bonding, insight, tears for the city whoring itself to what it loathes for survival, tears at my voyeurism, my cameraic compulsiveness, his not belonging, a sell out or a buy out, hard to pick it. Seemed rock solid.

but i have never had my heart beat so hard, never had whatever feeling that was rush up in me, dizzy, faint, exploding, at finally seeing someone. what is it? faith, no more....

grinding of the gears into self-destruct mode. or... destruct mode anyways. yet it seemed to have the opposite effect, just like last time, leaving me puzzled at being foiled and wondering what I want. again.

could it just be the hair? all this.... for curls?

charge me up

the ass in the jeans, perfection

i need a muse

i said i'm scared of commitment. he said, but there is no commitment other than living together. maybe that's the problem. i'm not good with promises, not so far anyway, especially not the ones I make to myself. i'm sincere at the time, but have some strange optimist inside me in search of something more suited, and a self-destruct mode that kicks in while I don't act on it. some truths remain unspoken. I dreamed of a president, a prince, instant laundry and an avenue of decay and old people's homes, a lawn. being left to wander while some cute little girls came in and wondered who i was, i belonged there but not long enough for a sense of entitlement. set to work redecorating, the old people needed a facelift. to their home, that is.

maybe i am sagging. or Sag-ing.

....something beginning with Daddy.

Again I think I'm there and I'm not in fact, or nowhere near it. I get grumpy and unsettled and don't know why, I can't even smell anything. I turn it from glory to mud, and why? Don't know, maybe fall asleep and it will go away, but I don't see how. He smells something, and his nose is hot on the trail, but just like any other puppy he won't know what it is until he finds it. Don't get frustrated with your nose, or with my nose, just have faith that all roads must lead somewhere. See what I'm scared of. I know when I'm bullshitting myself, but don't know how to clarify. And thus the partnership, your special straight talking skill, cuts through it all and to the point and bone. Thought you nicked a duct on the way and the tears flow and you get frightened, but there is always a layer of tears just covering the truth. And the trust. Most scared just before you let go and fall. Will I be caught, again and again? Isn't that too good to be true? Won't it wear out? Won't I fall through one day? I've fallen once or twice, I think, or have I? What did I need most and when did I need it? I can't even remember. But it all seemed to be conditional.... I am puzzled and do my best but it's at the point now where I can't finish it up just on that inertia. I'm not running anymore. I've relaxed to enjoy the view. I see that it's all behind me, and maybe I did rush through, but I wasn't enjoying that part so it's done and dusted if you ask me. I see the future and it is bright, must trust my Sagi friends from time to time and know she sees the truth of it. But the shadow looms still, a confrontation burning and I can't find the right time to push it over the edge of the cliff. "I know you can do it" - aha! the thought has occurred. I see myself happy to see the shadow at that point, I learned my opposites somewhere, my black and whites and say-exactly-what-you-don't-thinks... Will turn that one on its head and show that the child will always surpass the parent in at least one thing... He must think it won't be finished, just like last time (although I scared myself a bit on that one)... must I repeat this? Why does he always make this about HIM and what HE wants? How can I turn it around this time without having to be 15-year-old about it? How can I do it for me? Do I want it? Why? Because I can? How dull. I want to be interesting, more interesting not to finish it? Maybe I can lie and deal with it that way... no, it's not happening. Surprise, my graduation is this Saturday. That might show him everything he needs to know. That might motivate me. Is it ok to lie to the shadow? Can't continue as is, don't want the detail, can't do anything with it and it's not useful information, no use to me. His help does not help, is it reasonable to extract help unwillingly? Can I deceive? Would I be forgiven? Would it matter if I weren't? He doesn't know what I need and seems to want to give something. I think I'll take it. Accept that some people speak another language altogether, be focused but flexible... Push on with it all, and it's for me now. Feel better already!

Don’t cycle me repeating and defending and making mo mos and I see me being silly but I am such a reactive beagle, going on instincts instead of thoughts, maybe because I’m thinking so much that the reactions are in place to allow my thoughts to be elsewhere.

A cycle of down, lesson after lesson, I calmed down but my brain was still working overtime, you can tell from my reactions, know myself better now but still have to ride the merri-go-round one more time now that I know what I’m looking out for. Didn’t learn enough or share my feelings enough, I felt angry and the cracks showed, the energy leaks out and makes a muddle of the world, shows us the issue that we most thought would just go away. We deal with it or we don’t, that’s the choice, can see how it makes people angry and divide, we are so much more than that but haven’t developed why yet, will get right on it. He finally made the safe place for us. I sank into it and sighed relief and wonder and happiness for the first time in days. Some of it exercise, some of it avoidance, some of it stuckedness. Mostly just missing him and wondering how to get him to come back but the more you chase the kelpie, the more he runs away. The beagle just runs in circles as long as you pretend to chase her but my will she go fast, legs a-blur, if she knows you’re there and you’re watching. She’ll run right past you just to make you spin around. He finally decided to lay down next to me. We can talk in the safe place, could never ever argue there or see anything but beauty and green. Start small, think big, we can make safe places everywhere, make them more in our nature, my nature, his nature.

There was a crash and a silence and I ran and was scared but saw him walking and was ok until I heard him call for me in the "uh-oh" voice that I hadn't heard before because he is usually in control of it all. The cash got tighter and we needed a car because the other one broke and wasn't working. The old feelings came back, the ones where I'm mad at the world, when everything really does go red, and green, and it's hard to think and I just want to grab lightning bolts out of the air and throw them. This time it's different though, not mad at him. Last time I nearly crashed it myself from being so angry, pulling sideways into the driveway and nearly crashing someone else, running in and shaking him and throwing things and kicking things and pushing things and punching things until the pain made me focus on an outlet. Don't take my money from me from being stupid, the theme that time, and the time before when the glasses were rolled up in the hot tent and the milk powder went everywhere in the humid place where I already said I would kill him. I wonder if it's maternal or paternal but somehow I think it's both... mothers is murderous, fathers is loud, I combine them both myself and learned them from a young age and it's something that seems to go deep inside me and I get so angry at the whole world and refuse to learn anything. Take the cowards way out, make a pain come that's real and not just internally bursting. I looked and saw fear in his eyes and forgot that he hadn't always been there to see it all and I might have told him about it but it's not the same as being there. Forgot that I had crashed before and how scary it is and that he needs me to hold him, not be angry. He has tears of sorry but really, really, I'm not mad at him, just mad full stop, knew it was going to happen somehow. Again I focus on irrelevancies and get stubborn and scared in them. The tears stop me for a moment but then back to the anger and yelling and I want to hold him so I can stop myself but it's not the way. Then another crash comes, behind me, but I can see his face, it isn't good, I don't and won't believe it but there is a gap on the wall now. I look and there are pieces everywhere. "Why does that happen when I walk into the room?" he asks, more tears coming but I don't ever ever want him to cry ever, and I scream out "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?" and then it dawns. Two weeks into it and this test comes and I started to fail it and my ancestors call to me through the art of my grandfather and wake me and shake and I am calmed. I see clearly. If I want to throw lightning bolts there are consequences. So many better ways of using the energy at my disposal. Must not aim them near my beloved, must use them only when necessary, to defend what is ours, not to break what we love and make holes between us. Served the purpose, seen what is there in me, what I am scared of and despise but see as a necessary part of the balance, don't have to tell a story about it. Will I see his? Do I want to? Not until necessary, I know his is the same but he again brought it out and examined it at a young age and mastered it. My great big defense-ego stopped me learning a lot of lessons. Didn't stop loving him even a moment and at that precise point know that he is the always. Ride some aftershocks of habitual doubt and bad beagleness but I know I can learn now, I know I can listen, I know I can be better and still be me.

Bad bad bad beagle. Soak up the feelings and remember to be good. Receive the impressions and exaggerate them for your own uses, but what is this? Oh no! I see what I have always done but not cared until now that I did it. I make it worse. See what you do to me? It’s all your fault now. Oh no. Worse beagle. Bad bad beagle. I rolled in the smelly thing and now it’s ALL over me and I can’t get it off, I just have to wait. Maybe I can make it rain? Wash it off me with the tears? But then my beloved gets wet too, and I really didn’t want that. Oh no. Worse worse beagle. Can I lick it all off? Can I go far away so at least my beloved doesn’t have to smell it? Now he’s lonely without me, and it’s given me a funny feeling in my tummy from licking all this fur off with the stuff. Oh no. Worse worse worse beagle. I see the consequences of my silliness and I whine with regret. Oh no. Beagle starts to run in a circle and chase her tail, make the world go away with dizziness and spinning and fun with my tail. Oh no. I can still smell the smelly stuff and my beloved sees a crack in me. I don’t know how to be good, I have ideas but then I don't remember them. The secret bits are the interesting parts, those bits make everyone special. Its much easier to be a good beagle when there aren’t any other beagles around, making me roll in the smelly stuff even though they KNOW it will smell on me. I must remember to be a good beagle and make my actions speak louder than my thoughts and feelings. I must be able to be trusted, and make my kelpie proud of me. Don't be bad, beagle, don't do it.

I went to the mountain but was very afraid. I had been to the mountain before and felt happy and had fun, but this time it was more slippery and I went fast and couldn't stop except for violently. I had forgotten to be The Beagle, I was cautious but didn't want to disappoint. I went beyond my boundaries, forgetting that they are MY boundaries, they may change from day to day but the constancy is that they are mine. I could feel something coming but didn't listen to myself, I had never been afraid like that before and thought it was just me and I would get over it. I slid and slipped and fell lots of times, I could see where I was going which confused me very much. I wanted to stop or be excellent and I couldn't do both. When you fall, you fall in your mind first, right? I didn't know how fragile my bones were, or that I could save them with my muscles. I was going too fast and couldn't turn in time and didn't want to shoot off the edge. I panicked, threw my body around and feet in the air, so fast, the ground was closer than I thought it was. My hand caught me, rather than my neck or my head. I heard the snap, a small sound but unmistakable and seemingly understated for such a large problem. I wonder if I broke a bone? I thought something was going to give, I couldn't keep at it all day feeling so scared. There were three days to go on the mountain, it couldn't go so wrong so soon? Could I deny the injury and ride the rest of the day? But it had gone wrong from the start when I wouldn't listen to myself, this was just the end part. How could anyone not know when they'd broken something? My body was very clear about it, divided into "right" and "definitely not right". Consequences spun out ahead of me and the tears came, so angry at myself for second guessing every step of the way. Be more stubborn, just like the beagle, Beagle. Remember how the puppy would lie flat on the ground when she didn't want to move anywhere? NO! I WON'T go with you, I want to be RIGHT HERE. I do not want to be dragged by this leash. I couldn't move her no matter what I did, had to pick her up and carry her, to the laughs of the schoolchildren "Haahaa, look, the puppy doesn't want to walk!" Beagles can be stubborn. Apparently now the sport owes me.

"The sensitive ones are the least sensitive" - I swing between extremes, I don't know where the happy medium is. The days I feel the most, I feel the least. I see him as the way I can feel it all best but I haven't figured it all out as yet. Constant surprises from him, he knows exactly what is needed. I look and peer but there are always places I don't know about that he watches me from. Why am I so interesting? What made me worthy of this, more than any other? Is that my fear, that my ego will destroy it all? Can me as a solitary person be deep enough to captivate? I see the point of forever now, there is no bottom of it all. The sideways action of me still creeps forwards in a zig-zag. I still tend to hide the parts until I've inspected them thoroughly and made sure they're interesting enough to share. Is it a jealousy to not let them go before I've looked at them? Will I ever see a piece of him that he has not inspected first? Perhaps, there are moments, I can tell when we go back and they're no longer on display for me although I know I have not yet learned the proper respect and it's no surprise to me. Perhaps it was a panicked childhood where I learned to steal and force things open, the brute strength theory, I can see where I might have learned that. Repeated panic to make sure it's where I left it: who was that, who kept moving my things? Someone sneakier than me, must be someone, wouldn't learn the snoopy-feelings from no-one. I wonder again and always at his patience, the source and the aim. Again I squirm with excitement.

The Sleeping Tide

Feeling subconscious again, no self in it, emoting from the place in me where I never reproach. Why must I panic in order to act? Why do I resent the intrusion, an excuse to go backwards to the place that is uncomfortable and safe. Dreams of mud and airplanes, run across the field to hide and bathe with an audience of people who never dared, bring the child along who can't relate and only store it for future thinking. Why show an infant far away places when everything around is new? I lay awake and spiral again, wondering how to make it all fresh or fold it all through, will the bubbles collapse or fizz all at once? Then I hear the sound and know that it was what I had always missed and yearned for, the waves I dream about that come and chase me, sand collapsing under my feet, I cling to anything in the sand but the water is cold and bubbly and hungry. I swim through the clumps and grains to rescue myself, why don't I believe I can swim? I hesitate, unwilling to take a risk even in my dreams. My thoughts wash from side to side, maybe that explains the crab motion, this way, that way, back again, what did I miss? Check it again. I want to be soothed, I want the ocean in me, I want the beach and the waves but I have always feared them, wanted to control my position as I bob on the untameable. I have found the wave tamer. I let his waves wash over me, cover me. I am the sand, washed clean every time, mixed and settled again, always constant and changing. Always a beach where the sand and waves meet. Trust meets the laws of physics. I close my eyes and am finally soothed.

The Leap

An amazing combination of me-things leads to my behaviour. Is being cautious being afraid? I have always kept one foot firmly on solid ground, known my boundaries and kept within them although I might have been a little misleading to others when I said my boundaries were much more confined, gives me space and relief from pressure because then I'm always doing good. I can enlarge them at my own pace but it is frustratingly slow. I sit and beat my head, I am frustrated at the tiny number of synapse connections that limit my thinking and my understanding and make my subconscious reactions repeat again and again. What has been the common connection? What is it time to let go of? Is it safe? Please tell me. Is it safe? Then a creature falls from the sky, lands square on me, jolts me out of one idea and into the next. Finally but not a moment late. I sat and demanded it of the world, give it to me now, I know I'm ready. I see it all so clearly and want to keep the tears flowing for thankfulness. I see how gentle he has been. How patient. How I struggled and fought it just to see that it was indeed watertight. Convinced myself it was cerebral but it goes to the heart of me. In the nick of time, at the perfect time, he forced the issue and gave me all I needed to see. He can feel the change as I do. It's not relax or be uptight, it's be there or be elsewhere. The death throes of my clinging, firm foot, sting all around me, sting him because he's the cause of it. Feel an instant annoyance with every word that begins the terror of repeating it all, must be subconscious because I can't choose this unhappiness. Emphasise the wrong things, need the physical, focus on that, we can count it. My mind surprises me and sees the answer but can't explain it to my heart or my soul, they argue it over and sting all around and chase their tails around and around. My defenses become more and more primitive on the scale of me. The opportunity to try it on for size, to publicise, the last piece I needed. I face it finally, ask the questions, stop kidding myself. So frightening that the glass slipper fits the dying, clinging, firm foot and restores the life. I see now it had always been dying. Could this have been meant to be? That slipper meant for me? Can I wear it? The deja vu returns instantly and now it is of course. The instant annoyance vapourised, soothing calm floats me to him and I sleep in his arms. Once again I am astounded, amazed, and so grateful. More than ever. Finally understand the forever word and know that I can say it and mean it. Or maybe not say it because I feel it, loud enough for him to hear.

Revenge

Best served cold or at least served over and over. Stop the cycle but how, where is my power? I keep searching but I can't decide. Revenge is not in my nature but in my nurture, I can at least settle that argument. Why does it make you feel better? Why is it necessary? I can't see, but I feel it. At least I understand the origin now and know it wasn't in anything I did, blame the little half-you, half-him, that got together and made me even though it was nothing I ever asked for. "Somebody shoot that child." How dare it exist and impinge on your tranquility, what's left of it, didn't get enough on the farm. Or got too much and panic when it's gone, the worst nightmare, the leeches, the parasites, fear them passed on to me and to him but it's the way of things, the flow of things, the nature of things, can't nurture it out. Don't infect me with your fear anymore. Fear deep water, fear being out of control, fear being alone. Aha! Got it now. Fear being alone. The worst moments are the ones when you're all by yourself so I am still no closer to understanding why that's what you do, what you insist on... do it to yourself and no-one can beat you to it. I insist on not being alone because you made it that way but I had more control than you because I have never insisted on privacy, I must know all and share all, what value is a book if it is never opened? Only so much paper pressed together in a useless pile. I prefer to bury my nose in it, smell it and feel it, and sometimes even read it. Always wondered why I couldn't feel the writing that made the words that made the feelings. Can I make you not afraid? Why can't you heal you? Can I be angry at you for that? Is it my problem? It affects me but should it? It's only a part of me because it made me who I am, it constitutes my fears. Can I deny where I come from? Can I make it in to something else, something to be proud of? How do I accept it and reject it at the same time? How can I pick and choose?

Consciousness

Consciousness is not equal to self-consciousness. Amazing the lengths that people will go to in order to not deal with themselves. Bury your head in the sand or a book and maybe the whole world will go away. What the hell happened to make her like this? What early trauma could explain it? Is it as simple as a poorly-socialised puppy who doesn't know how to play and bites when it is scared, which is all the time because the whole world is scary when the only part of it you feel comfortable with is your own back yard. Fear and confusion. Maybe fear is confusion. Spend more and more money so that you don't have enough spare to have to go out into the world. Maybe this journey is sufficiently big for her. It wouldn't be fun to see the whole world on one's own, particularly if one was poorly socialised as a puppy and doesn't know how to make friends, except with puppies. No fun biting people. Or stinging them. "It's in my nature" said the miserable scorpion as it stung the frog on the way across the stream. Disparage your sister for drinking tea and eating toast in Italy, but at least she had the Lion courage to leave the little town and explore the world, with friends that she made on her very own. What attention seeking self slicing expensive excuses. Who cares if you have glasses? Who cares how big your boobs are? Why spend so much time looking at yourself and being miserable because you don't know how to change what you see through any kind of willpower besides the kind that denies yourself in the most painful way for you, with your oral fixation and compulsion to pop things in there... cigarettes, fingers, food.... I don't comment on how you look because I honestly don't notice, I'm too busy sensing your frigging feelings of insecurity. Aaaargh, get out of me.

Tell me I'm fabulous!

My partner reassures me and I get snappy - what are you reassuring me for? I'm absolutely fine and confident! Or was I? Aha! Again he sees me more clearly than I can. My facades are well developed yet he sees through them to the part that he can help with. I think I only want praise and reassurance about tasks new to me or stretching for me but it isn't at all, it's the ones that I think I do well that I really need the pat on the head for. I know I can rise to a challenge, and do well for a beginner. Can I become an expert at something? I've always spread myself thinly and not excelled, mind wanders, short attention span. Afraid to succeed, but why? Because it won't be noticed? Where is the satisfaction in a job well done if noone else sees how well? Why not just keep trying new things? I am tired of that kind of praise. Again my wonderful partner amazes me...

Trust

If you're not absolutely confident that you could trust your partner with your life, then you've made the wrong choice! Exercise trust regularly and it will get stronger.

Empathy or Sympathy

The Week of the Empath - The Curse of the Empath - The Cure of the Empath

Why feel everything? I think I can't help it.... Some say I'm lucky or clever to be able to do it and feel special to think that I can feel what they are feeling but I really think it might just be rude, an intrusion. Do I need to feel? Why? What is it distracting me from? I reflect so well, maybe I'm a mirror. How do I care for my sad loved ones and feel what each of them feels at the same time? How do I know I'm not tainting their feelings with my own impulses - if I felt that way myself I would run away, should I give that advice? Are the people I'm dealing with even capable of happiness? Do they know what happiness is? Would there be any point in them running away if they were merely going to run into the same mess again? Ah, maybe that's the trick, pretend I don't understand... me no speaka da engrishh

The Scorpio maneuver

Sting or be stung. What a way to raise a child!

One point of view: "If you push me, I perceive an attack. I am therefore justified in defending myself."

Another point of view: "I am trying to reach out to you emotionally to understand you and I do this by asking questions when I don't understand."

Not really an attack is it? Most people wouldn't think so. The Scorpio's world is precious to them, their emotional world and emotional privacy utmost. How dare anyone try and understand it, it's private. The Scorpio then seems to think that there's no accountability to the rest of the world, they can do as they like when they like, for emotional reasons that no-one has any right to pry into. So the poor Cancer child tries to learn from the Scorpio parent how to emotionally relate to people. The Cancer MUST share, it's not private at all, it is only meaningful if it is shared. The lesson learned is therefore, if I don't understand how I'm feeling, to explain it is difficult. To separate the feelings from the reaction even more difficult. The reaction might be wrong but the feeling has no wrong or right. If you question me and I think I am right (but know I am wrong), I will snip. Is it a sting? It can be if properly applied. The difference is that the Cancer is sorry for behaving so badly because they can feel the hurt they inflict more keenly than their own pain. Hard to pause for reflection until I'm forced to, and I'm not forced to until I've inflicted. This will be an interesting knot to unravel. Ah, that's it. The sting carries a venom. The snip will heal cleanly (unless the nipper has been messing around in some germiness). Get this venom out of me, no need to pass it on. (Ah, now I understand. Out, out, Damned Spot).

Space time

Time for myself.... prioritising.... what was that I was saying about expressing needs? Do I just withdraw instead of expressing myself? I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Once again in my attempts to please everyone I hurt the one I love most and thus start to think my efforts are futile or at least so utterly not worth it. I take on everyone else's problems and I seem to get a recurrent illness... what is my body trying to tell me? I'm talking too much? I'm not expressing myself? Or maybe the least debilitating way for my body to tuck itself into bed and not talk to anyone. Do I need to shuffle through my suite of reactions one last time and see which are now obsolete? Do I assume they are all obsolete?

When is it time to let go?

I have seen many relationships fail, all around me. It seems so hard for people to communicate. Needs can't be fulfilled until they are expressed, in most cases anyway. It is unrealistic for most people to expect their partner to intuitively understand their needs. Maybe the understanding comes with time for some, or for a lucky few, it is instinctive, but that kind of instinct can't be relied on all the time. Being able to express your needs is an infinitely valuable skill to have, and most people don't or can't learn it from their parents. In the same way, being able to listen to someone's needs is equally important. Parental relationships seem to be layered with so many restrictions on what is appropriate for a child to experience, which adult emotions are appropriate for a child to observe. So many times a child is told to shush when it expresses how it is feeling. How confusing! Children told they shouldn't feel something - how can feelings be controlled? (As my partner is showing me, it is the reaction that is important.) Why is it so frightening to express how you feel and what you need?... to be cont...

Emotional Downloads

Some days are better than others or so the saying goes. Some days it is easy to cope with everyone's sadness, others it is not and I feel it all too much. From now on, if my loved ones' emotional downloads are not actually helping them then I'm not going to hear any more. Of course I love the drama but it is too distracting from the rest of my life, and isn't it an ancient Chinese curse if someone says to you, "May your life be interesting!" Life can be simple if you choose to be that way. Do they even realise that it affects me? Would I get calls in the middle of the day with people's problems and sadness if they knew that it stops my progress? I still feel compelled to help, obliged to help because I have insight, selfish if I don't share it. It must be so hard for a parent to let go of the child's hand and just let them take the first step on their own. How did I learn this lesson? My beautiful partner, of course, with so much to teach me. I saw how he felt when I passed on to him the downloads I accumulated during the course of a day. He became as miserable as I was. Well what's the point of that?!! Didn't help either of us. Of course he knows exactly how I'm feeling as soon as he hears my voice or sees my face, no need to make him feel that way too. He has no use for my loved ones' problems, nor does it help them for him to know the problems. My beautiful partner is an endless resource of happiness for me so I decided to let him be exactly that. Then he feels happy for cheering me up and giving me some perspective and release from the day's burdens, and I feel happy that he feels happy for making me happy... and thus another instance of the perfect total internal reflection that is the magic of our relationship.

Relationship Philosophy 1. If you have a task you would like completed and you have an end goal in mind, either: a) do it yourself, or b) explain your end goal to your partner for them to complete it. If the end goal is important to you and you have your partner complete the task, who is to blame if the outcome doesn't meet YOUR expectation and your partner didn't know what your expectation was? Why should you expect someone else to have identical standards and values to you? - thinking further.... is the outcome always important? (the "Don't Sweat The Small Stuff" philosophy). Don't abuse your partner through assigning a standard that could be met only by chance. It erodes trust, because your partner will not know if you have changed the standard after the task was underway, and creates tension because your partner will either try to please you and consistently fail (upsetting to both of you), or your partner will not try to please you which sows the seeds of doubt.... You need to rely on each other.

Questions, Questions, Questions

Learn from your relationship. It should not be a struggle, but an opportunity to relax and let go of exactly one half of the things that you otherwise would have to worry about if you were on your own. If you think your troubles have doubled rather than halved, then that is a choice you have made and you will have to relinquish it in the future. Feel light, not heavy!