Mandaris Moore

It seems like everything things get good between my wife and I things seem to fall apart. I don't know what it is but it feels like the problem I'm having with my mom. I.E. things go well and then GRRRRRR we're silently fighting.

I'm afraid that I married my mom in that regard. I've married someone who's default behavior is something akin to a wild animal. Even when you think she's pretty tamed, she'll rear back and swipe at you.

And that isn't even the worst part about it.

The worst part is that there are very rarely moments where I feel that she even notices it herself or feels that she maybe in the wrong. When we talk about it. I usually hear "you do it too" as if makes it right and a brush off that the argument is over.

It's not over.

I feel blooded and scared over it.

I've been thinking about the story of the scorpion and the frog:

A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The frog asks, "How do I know you won't sting me?" The scorpion says, "Because if I do, I will die too."

The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream, the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown, but has just enough time to gasp "Why?"

Replies the scorpion: "Its my nature..."

Maybe it is our nature, maybe it is something being blown out of proportion.

But if you felt your relationship was sinking, what would you do?

It sucks soooo bad that I sometimes wonder why I even bother in the first place. Was the subject of what we were fighting over so big that we have to go through this? Do the highs of our relationship really outweigh the lows?

Part of me tells me to just relax because this is part of what relationships are about. Highs and lows. We've been having some rough spots because I've lost my job and the money has gotten a lot tighter¹. We both have our expectations of what should and shouldn't be.

Another part of me is angry at the world. Angry at where I am. Angry at myself.

I was having a fairly good day and I didn't want to walk into that familiar routine of being her punching bag. I'm tired of taking other people's redacted and I dumped it back on her with other stuff as well.

And then she just laughed.

That's where I went wrong. I got angry. I got very angry and said that I sometimes don't like coming home to her because of her attitude. I might have said some other stuff too. I don't remember all of it, but I'm sure she'll remind² me.

I went for a walk before it got bigger. I came home. We didn't look at each other. She took the girls. We slept in separate rooms.

Now I'm sitting at a coffee shop.

I might as well be sitting in the middle of Antarctica for all the distance and coldness between us.

I'm writing this one in bed.

Not the first time for that, but this time is weird. My wife and I haven't said anything beyond "Can I sleep here?" and "If you want to".

I'm going to chalk this up as a result of stress on the both of us after the contract my contract ended. Plus I have some more bad news, I didn't get a job that I really wanted after doing two interviews. I honestly felt that I was a shoe in for the position, so I'm really disappointed.

I thought about starting some kind of video blog of my progress on how I attempt to find employment and talked about it with my friend, Nick.

The first thing he asked me was if I had ever thought about doing a kickstarter to get a business going and what it would be. It was then, that I told him about a half thought about what I would do if I couldn't find a job.

We decided to meet up tomorrow and talk about what things we can do moving forward.

Working out

Tomorrow, I start working out at intence fitness and I'm a little worried about how it is going to turn out. I haven't been to the gym in years and this is promising to be a unique experence.

I'm going because I have a one month voucher, but I don't know if I'll be staying because... well, I don't have a job. Plus the place doesn't seem to be that proffesional. I called them twice on Monday and didn't get a call back until 4pm that day.

We'll see.

I don't really know why I find relationships to be difficult sometimes. I think it is because of the way that I see the world. When I was younger, it felt like I was an outsider looking in. I could almost see the connections between people as threads and see how what one person could effect another. I remember feeling alone in this because none of the connections to me seemed to be that strong. I made a conscience decision to focus more on being in the world instead of just looking at it...

I know that I've made some really good connections with other people, but I don't know if I ever forgot the feeling and viewpoint of looking at the world in that way. There is a part of me that looks at the way people treat each other and says, "No matter what I say, that person is going to treat that other person like shit". But maybe that's all part of growing up; seeing that we can't change everybody and that being able to recognize that people must make their own decisions.

Now that I have a wife and kids, I find myself dreading going back to that outlook with them. Sometimes, I feel that I'm only watching them as opposed to living with them. I've been making more time for those I love to tell them that I love them and that I'm proud of them.

Because, they are the most prized connections that I have.

I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be an adult. To me, being an adult means owning up to your responsibilities and making reasonably rational decisions. I say reasonably because there are things that can't/shouldn't be rationalized. For example, love between exact opposites or why they stopped showing Captain Eo at DisneyLand (completely irrational).

On the opposite side of the equation, we have emotion. The western world has a love/hate relationship with emotions. In America, it is written that we should all be working on that constant pursuit for happiness. Some of the best movies are about people who do this.

As an adult, we all have to balance this.