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I think I"m making some moderate headway in habit changing.

Briannah

Entry posted by Briannah

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So usually my add and natural personality has us living very by ear.  Planning is SO not my thing, and it has been an herculean effort to start developing that skill.   But the staycation and vacations after peak season are important to Nikki, downtime after that crazy work schedule, so I'm trying to be more organized about it to further reduce the stress on Nikki. Easier said than done, but I'm definitely making headway. 

I have a menu list for staycation, no more arguments about what to eat.  We have this weird dynamic there, where Nikki apparently believes I won't eat ANY food so he's not going to choose anything and that responsibility is fully upon me (complete with complaining when I do pick) and I have an inherent emotional pushback against "whatever you want" that stems from a sense that relationships should be about both, and I emotionally hear "whatever you want" as "I don't really care, pick something and shut up so I can go back to forgetting about you for a while".  I've tried communicating this to Nikki, but no change in our patterns from that side yet, so I'm trying harder on mine to be different.  Avoid the entire context then and pretend it doesn't happen I suppose.

As for vacation, I have already done the budget, booked the cruise, booked the excursions, booked the hotels (except hotel B, I want his input on it since there are options half the price of our preferred hotel brand in the area and it is just one night) on a planned we are driving from home to destination a day one, and destination a hotel to hotel b that is right by the marina day 2, and then from 2 to the parking which I have already prebooked.  And booked the hotel we always use on the way home.  Two stays on the way there because we arrive in Florida at night, one becuase it's fine to arrive home at night. :)   So this will remove the everyone is tired, cranky, and really wants out of the car fighting over finding a place to stay that usually occurs trying to find an open reasonably priced room Florida.  Nikki often doesn't want to prebook everything because he likes the flexibility of driving and stopping at will, but it's really not working out so well.  We're going to try organized.   And under budget.  Black Friday got us a good deal on the room, so did prebooking the hotels, and the parking area we use always includes on free day if you pay in advance instead of at the lot(and I signed up for their parking rewards card, every 10 days you earn a free one, and the credits supposedly never expire).  And then I put all the paperwork into one of the old travel clutches they used to give you when you went on cruises (now everyone is just supposed to print their documents, I know it's cheaper and all, but I really miss the little thrill of getting that clutch in the mail with the formal tickets, luggage tags, and welcome aboard brochures to leaf through!).  Fortunatly I had saved one, it's a great way to keep the pass ports, all travel papers, and such all in one place and make it easier on the trip. 

I've even improved my packing skills.  We pack a small seperate duffel bag entirely for the hotels so we don't have to mess with the big luggage.  Just grab our litle hotel bag and carry on for the ship (becuase this usually has our electronics and toothbrushes), quick and easy.  We started doing that last two cruises, and it worked wonderfully.

So I'm apparently teaching my brain the value of organization little by little.  The big successful vacation improvement emotional behavior reward is starting to spill over into other things, planning meals and shopping off a list instead of just getting food in general I"m familiar with and trying to wing it. 

There is some internal emotional blowback of course, I can't quite overcome the resentment of all the time it takes to plan everything out.  I know rationally that I'm actually saving time, and stress, but emotions don't come from rational thinking.  If they did, this would be a much easier place to live in.  But it's easier to deal with those resentful feelings knowing that I'm getting something out of the work.

And the lesson I learned today, if it's this hard to push myself to improving my behavior and actions on a thing that isn't hugely emotionally invested, I need to have more patience with the world no matter how much I hate bullying and segregation and oppression, because how much harder is it to change the feelings that create that.

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Emma

You are certainly making good progress Bree, good for you. I've also often said something along the lines of "whatever you'd like" to the question of what to eat, which movie to see, whatever. I learned something from my wife that helped us. As I'm sure you understand, making these choices is kind of a burden. You're having to come up with choices, make a choice, and all along, hope that your partner likes your choice. Sometimes it's nice not to have to deal with it and let the other person choose. From my perspective I was assuming that by giving her the choice I was being flexible and supportive, but I learned that sometimes (often?) that's not the way it's received. So maybe that's a good topic for discussion with Nikki, and it might also reduce some of your resentment which is always a good thing. Nip it in the bud!

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Briannah

I just get so unreasonably mad at the time I have to spend PLANNING a thing, ya know?  Whether it's a grocery meal plan or a complicated mmo raid.  There is this niggling 'why can't i just do it and figure it out as I go?' thought in the back of my mind.  One of the best thing Nikki ever gave me was my smartphone, the day I discovered the gps and realized I would never have to sit with a bunch of maps trying to figure out a route again was amazing(auto-correct less so, for a tool that is supposed to be helpful it sure has resulted in a LOT of embarrassment over the years!  And a quick aid when I get lost driving around my town.  Yeah, I do that.  Sometimes.  And you can even use it for walking directions, which was really helpful when we were in Central Park in NYC and had no idea how the paths work to get from museum to train.  

I don't know why my brain gets so mad about planning, it's obviously effective and I'm slowly learning skills for it.  But I guess as long as I learn that the behavior is useful, and it's okay to be mad about it while I'm working on a project and do it anyway, I'll have won some kinda prize, right?  Maybe I should tell Nikki to buy me a rubber duckie or something as my prize.  They're cute.  I wish I understood WHY I feel like that, where the emotional connections even come from, it's so randomly irrational. 

As for Nikki, tried explaining the intention vs. reception, and he tells me he hears and understands, then does it again that very day.  I think I may just have to bite the bullet on this one, its not going anywhere good and Ill just have to learn to not hear anything at all instead of 'I just don't want to be bothered with you" when he says that I guess.  Not sure how healthy that is, but it's can't be worse than the current dynamic right?

We're arguing right now about presents actually, he wants to know what i want for my birthday.  And really, the only things I want in general right now is to have this vacation settled and for my neighbors to stop being crazy, neither of which Nikki can put in a box and wrap.   And I think Nikki has already purchased just about EVERY turtle available in town for me over the years.  Hm...maybe I'll ask him to make one of the pinterest projects I liked.  Not the big three piece painting I linked earlier, that one is in multiple layers requiring a lot of space to do an drying time, but the smaller plank beach one.  That's doable in the time allotted, and I"ve seen Nikki's work, definitely has the skill for it.

 

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MonicaPz

Dear Bree and Emma,

Had come across a travel agent that catered to the transgendered (cruises) but the groups were small (under 20) and the rest of the ship were non-transgendered, but everyone respected each other.  Saw a video of the cruise and was very impressed.

No longer on their listserv, but I will try to Google them and see if I can find them. 

Yours truly,

Monica

 

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Briannah

Thank you, but definitely not anytime soon, our next few cruises are all planned with other people where it would be awkward.  :)  Nikki still wants to chill out in the closet, but I will bookmark that for future use just in case.  

Edited cuz I hit the wrong button and sent too soon.  I'm not surprised that everyone was pretty respectful, cruises have their own sort of culture where everyone is super happy, super distracted by all the sights, sounds, tastes, and activities, and it's almost like everyone is your new best friend.  This will be our 8th time, and only twice did I meet people I would actively prefer not to have.  One was the drunk guy who fell on me in the elevater and was just going to stay there until teh guys from Oklahoma hauled him off me and rescued me (this guy was beyond three sheets to the wind, I'm surprised he wasn't dead from alcohol poisoning, I kept running into him all week and he was drinking ALL THE TIME, early morning to latenight) and the weird couple who pretended we weren't at the table with them at dinner one evening, which was weirdly awkward because it was a table for four and despite the fact that they chose not to be involved, it still FELT weird to try to carry on a conversation with each other that didn't include the two people across from us.  Most awkward cruise meal ever, and that includes the time my cousin K winged someone in the had with a flying escargot. 

Edited by Briannah
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