I had this Valentine's day post all ready to go; however, I spent a lot of time painting and thinking today and I changed my mind.

These past few months, Justin and I have been dealing with some difficult things.  At the core, the issue does not lie within either of us about each other, but when any couple feels the weight of stress, frustration and hurt the tendency is that it overflows into daily life and typically, it's easier to hurt those closest.

I thought yesterday that Justin and I should do a project together.  In my head I imagined us engaging with each other and opening up all while keeping busy.  I forgot the hundreds of HGTV shows where couples did projects together that actually brought out the worst in them.  In our case, it began in silent painting...the sound of the constant brush motion along with the arthritis in my wrist flaring up. While I was sitting there I couldn't help but think that at any moment he was going to apologize for hurting my feelings because he was upset with someone else.

Paint. Dip. Paint.

At one point, I thought for sure he was crying thinking about how innocent I was in all of this.

Paint. Dip. Paint.

Okay...any moment he is going to start talking and just confess how in the wrong he was.

Paint. Dip. Paint.

Come to find out, I am quite sure he was thinking all of those thoughts, but in reverse.  Remind me next time when I send my kid to his/her room to think about what they have done.  Mostly likely they are thinking about how I handled it wrong.

I ended up breaking the silence.  As we talked, I kept thinking how much he hated the old paint color and that instead of just living with it, we chose to take the time to put work into it, to make it our own, to not just endure the mustard yellow walls that surrounded us every day. Same with our relationship with each other.  We will forever be making it our own, repainting when necessary and putting the day to day work into it.

What's interesting within both of our pain is that separately we are dealing with our own heartbreak in different areas of life and with that we are doing our best to navigate it together.  It's easy when one spouse is doing great and the other is down, the great picks the down up.  This is our first time where we both have felt down for a while waiting on the great to pick us up....where's the great???  Who is supposed to be the great this time??  Then we both end up laying there....waiting....too weak to pick the other up. You can lay on the floor forever, but you will never become a rug.

Personally, the past few months for me have been raw and emotional.  I have confided in a few but for me, it's better to not attempt to get the advice from too many people because instead of working through it myself, I fall too easily onto other people. This has been something that I have had to just work through, listen to others, pray, but ultimately go through all of the steps for myself. I think with all of the heavy processing going on in my head, when I get home it's easy for me to be a monster to Justin. I have to remind myself that it has nothing to do with him.  I think of the saying "hurt people, hurt people."

I am reading a book recommend by a new friend (that I stalked down in the clearance Valentine's day candy isle, just saying, you know it's a good woman when we met up there).  The author talks about how her and her husband are in South Bend and they decided to just leave all of their personal/internal junk there...in South Bend.
Justin and I agreed to do just that. That we were leaving years of mis-communication, hurtful words, prideful moments and arrogance at Lowes...in the tile aisle.

Since it's not natural for me to just let it go sometimes, I felt the need to bring it back up on the way home and so therefore we actually left our baggage on 650 but one more thing came up so technically the baggage of 10 years of unintentional or intentional hurt is sitting on Indigo Blue Blvd.  It cannot be picked up again, that's the rule.

There are times when you just have to let it go. That trying to figure it out or making it right just may not happen. Sometimes an answer and even an apology doesn't cut it. Will I get angry again about mostly stupid and petty stuff?  Of course. Will I get fired about things I am passionate about?  Yes and Yes. But I will always remember that the junk from yesterday and the days before are sitting on Indigo Blue Blvd.

I really love this new paint color.