Setting intentions, reluctantly

Today I am thankful that the evening with Milo and Daniel was significantly more pleasant than last night, when Milo and I got into an extremely bad downward spiral.   I am a “because I said so” authoritarian parent when pushed.  Milo is very good at pushing.  I should have realized what was going on, disengaged, stopped trying to stick to the schedule and the inculcation of discipline and good habits and just gotten to the bottom of his rotten mood.  But, um, I forgot to do that.  Daniel came home and looked at us as if we were both crazy, me (the grown-up) especially and toppled into despair.  Tonight we were our usual sparkling and fabulous selves.  And I made kale for dinner, which makes me feel exceedingly virtuous.  The guys tolerate it.

Here’s the thing about my blogging.  When I come here, I, as have repeated said, control the narrative.  I can shape the story, I can pace it, this space is mine without impediments.  And I have lovely readers and commenters who say nice things about me and it’s all cozy and delightful.

My home life is not nearly this reliable.  Since we’ve been back home, I notice how intent I am on blogging, which means I’m not as intent on focusing my attention on Daniel in the evenings.  Given that I started this blog largely as a way to focus my attention and intention on improving my marriage after infertility, this is rather ironic.  Daniel and I need loads and loads of attention from each other.  Or maybe we don’t, but it’s what we think we need.  We get rather peckish if the other is staring at the screen all night.  I’ve considered cutting back on my posting, maybe to two or three times a week (I’m averaging about five now, I think), so that I can just be more present with Daniel, and also get more boring household stuff done.  But I don’t want to.  I like myself more when I write.  I want to spend more time writing, for other venues, not less.  I don’t know how I’m going to work this out.

My time is so regimented and parceled out.  Adding entails subtracting.  Over the last several months, blogging more means sleeping less, which is not sustainable for me.  I need to be done by… well, about now.   Every night.

I try to avoid New Years resolutions, but this morning, in response to yesterday’s bad and unsettling evening and a minor but repercussive skirmish with Daniel the day before, I decided to set some intentions to do things differently.  I am skittish about setting intentions because of those wacky yoga emails and Oprah articles that say (they don’t even suggest) that the right intentions are the key to results.  Well, yeah, sometimes, kind of.  But they don’t always get you pregnant.  Necessary, not sufficient, not by a long shot.

But I do think that setting my mind towards changing my behavior is a reasonable thing, and for whatever I reason I prefer to call this an intention rather than a resolution because intention sounds encouraging and like a feather and less strict and heavy than resolution.  Yeah, semantics, but I’m a big believer in the careful use of words and that they matter.  I won’t make a resolution, I will set an intention (and I will be very, very wordy about it, won’t I?)

Anyway, here are my intentions:

I am, per Daniel’s repeated and ardent requests, going to shepherd all of us into the living room when we get home, so we can spend 10 minutes talking to each other, rather than launching the evening program.  This sounds simple, but it is nearly impossible for me to do, ever.  I get home and start racing the clock (dinner! homework! practice! bath! bed! all between 6:20 and 8:30! Ready, set, go!) and I expect Daniel and Milo to race with me.  Daniel wants this, but he would rather be pissed off about it not happening than make it happen himself, so I’m going to try it, for him.  I am testing my assumption that it is impossible to do this and still get a decent dinner on the table at a decent time.

I am going to use my commute home to reinforce my intention to do the above, and generally to avoid my usual pattern of rushing myself and everyone else through the evening.  I am going to be intent on being lovely and welcoming.  I may fail, but I will probably succeed more often if I at least think about it.

Big, huge, super-impossible one here: I have an intention — or rather, I intend — to stop telling Daniel how to take better care of himself, or even to take better care of himself at all.  Daniel stinks at taking care of himself in ways that I want him to, meaning exercise, sleep, proper food, water and handwashing.   I believe that most physical and emotional states can be improved, a lot, thusly, and a chorus of women’s magazines (the old-lady ones like Real Simple and Ladies Home Journal, not Elle) agree vigorously — as I hope you do, dear readers.  It works for me!   But Daniel doesn’t do these things, even though his doctor told him just two days ago that stress is causing some intense and consistent physical discomfort (esophogeal spasms).  And you know, what?  I can’t make him.  He knows what I think, and it doesn’t change a damn thing.  So, it’s up to him.  When he complains about how he feels I will say, maybe aloud, maybe silently, “So what are you going to do about it?”  And that’s it.

This is a long paragraph that basically says “Stop nagging,” but I wanted to show how meritorious my intentions and my recommendations are, to show how heroic I am in renouncing them.

But if Daniel told me to do something (like write under my own name) as often as I told him to exercise or eat better, I’d be furious.  So, okay, empathy and silence.

Okay, this post has taken more than an hour, and I intend (!) to be gracious to Daniel and get to bed early tonight, so I’m off.  Ask me in 6 weeks (or days) how all this is working for me.