the Joy of Fun

[chelidon]

The last week and a half has held, for me, at least one long, hard, emotionally exhausting and painful conversation with someone I care about deeply just about every single day. Yesterday, it was a close family member whom I love dearly, but who is depressive, even with medication, is out of work again, is having severe and chronic health problems, has been seriously suicidal in the past, and with whom I have a long history of unhelpful patterns of relationship. One example of these patterns: this person gloms onto me emotionally by tearfully dumping out her litany of woes, many of which are obviously self-imposed and could be relatively simple to change. I listen, sympathize, and try to suggest possible courses of action where appropriate, then notice that every single suggestion, large or small, is immediately shot down as somehow completely impossible. And I realize yet again that her apparent goal for our conversation is not to solve problems (better to stick with old comfortable dysfunctions than face the possibility of change, which implies self-responsibility), or even just to be heard and listened to, but rather, to dump angst, and then for me to prove to her how much I really care by seeing just how long I will stay engaged in a hopeless situation and keep beating myself against a carefully-built brick wall. Oh, right, *that* pattern... Oi. And, aside from being not much fun (for either of us. I have to guess), it's quite counter-productive in that it just makes me less interested in engaging the next time, which then seems to make it even more necessary for her to amp up the angst even more, so I can "prove" I do still care. Vicious cycle, anyone?

So, anyhow, I am pretty damn tired, and I note that the physical and emotional energetic reserves I had built up during a couple of weeks away (ah, the restful relaxation of camp teaching ;>) are pretty much gone now, and I am back in my own too-typical pattern of throwing myself utterly body and soul into solving all the woes of the world (or at least, my world), without regard to personal limits and sustainability. It's the old "heroic model" again, and I remind myself that the world really doesn't need martyrs who give 200% for 10 years and then flame out, it needs people who give 80% for 60 years, and who can model that kind of healthy, sustainable pattern to others. Or, rather, whether the world needs that or not, it's what I need, especially as I inevitably (and quite thankfully, compared to the alternative), age, beyond the boundless energy and minimal bodily consequences of youth. The woes of the world will still be there tomorrow, and, *IF* I take good care of myself, I might be, too.

Yesterday when my partner got home, not long after my conversation with said family member, and before our son got home, she looked me over and insistently prodded me to go take a walk with her down to the stream and for a dip in the swimming hole. I note that I still managed to take along a shovel which I used to fill two potholes in our road and scrape a layer of mud off the bridge along the way, but going out, being in the wild for a while, letting the water wash some of the accumulated emotional guck off of me, and just having good nekkid FUN, was exactly what I needed.

Tonight my partner and I will take our weekly night out together, go out and eat, drink and make merry, and try to do absolutely no planning around child-rearing, bills, household repairs or other weighty topics. If we plan anything, it will be brainstorming around the 4-day backpacking trip we're intending to take together in a few weeks (first one in a long time, and celebrating some returning good health after a summer of health issues). We've found it can be way too easy sometimes to fall into a pattern of having most of our interactions be about the "necessary" -- the hard, mundane stuff, the work...and then we wonder where the magic, the joy, the lightness has gone. And if, over time, all or most of your interactions with someone are hard, painful work, then you start to dread those interactions. Don't let that happen with people you love.

I'm not saying don't pay your bills, or don't do your work -- those kinds of avoidance behaviours will just make for more stress down the line. Do what you need to do, but go have some fun in there. The hard stuff is so much easier when it's not all there is. And if there's someone you want to be truly close to (including yourself!), go have fun together, share a good laugh. No kidding ;>