JUDGE NOT

My new year is not starting out so super great.

Right off the bat, Hub left for nearly 2 weeks on a snowboarding trip.  He came back with a painful knee that he could no longer ignore.  I wrote about that in January.  Since then he's been almost full time making various medical appointments with specialists to address knee, foot, and shoulder issues.  Looks like Job #1 is a total knee replacement in the spring.  Always an athlete who is in great shape and who still wants to take on all manner of physical challenges with skill and confidence, he initially felt sidelined and despondent.  But now with a plan in place, he's moving forward, so that's good, but I'm still worried about all of it because that's what I do.

His absence was a challenge for me, given my wee anxiety disorder.  I don't like being home alone.  But instead of fretting and lamenting, I tried a different tack.  I pretended he didn't exist.  What if there was NO alternative to me being home alone?!  Voila!  No resentment.  I had to just put on my big girl panties and live my own independent, single lady life.  I called to mind all my strong, capable, live-alone woman friends... and you have no idea how much you all helped me!  I also did a daily check-in with a BFF, and felt loved and safe in her knowing all was OK with me and if she didn't hear from me, she knew to send in the militia.  What would we do without our women friends?  No idea.

So pretending he didn't exist got me through the weeks, but made it a difficult adjustment when he got back....hmmm.  Glitch in the plan.  I empathize with military wives who miss their man when deployed, learn to get on without him, then find there is a big adjustment to be made when he returns.  So, yeah, that was a thing.

Then I seemed to run into a buzzsaw of unintended pissing people off.  I also mentioned in my January post that Son Two and his fiancé had had enough of my judgmental side comments about big weddings with big price tags and my "joking" advice that they just elope.  When he sat me down with the 'knock it off' request, I knew he was right.  I recalled when I overstepped a couple times with my advice to Son One and my DIL too.

And then Hub and I had a significant disagreement last week, that has been an ongoing conversation, where my judgements also play a part.  Sometimes I apparently express my opinions like a reformed smoker who thinks those who still smoke should quit too, instead of recognizing that some people still smoke...and that I should just shut up about it.  "This doesn't affect you", he says.

So, given my super strong ego and ability to take in criticism in a healthy, confident, "Gee, thanks" manner, none of this phased me in the least.  NOT!  Naturally I dove into the pit of hell and decided I was the world's worst mother, wife, friend, human being.  Blah Blah Blah.

So, I start February a woman on a mission to be a "no-judgement, "no-comment", "no-advice" zone.  The problem with this is that I find I have very little to say.  I go silent in conversations, rehearsing if my pithy comeback and clever repartee is full of judgement, or if I'm about to say something that is less than kind or charitable or is dismissive or, hell, I don't know...just WRONG.  Given that I apparently am often unaware when I'm being hurtful, it makes it hard to trust my judgement. (Judgment being judged!  Oh, it's all so confusing!)  But I'm trying.  It's an interesting challenge to just observe and offer data-driven feedback.

Here, try this.  At breakfast at a local restaurant, my food wasn't as good as it usually is in this place.  I might have made a joke to my dining partner along the lines of, "Sheesh, the cook must be hungover today.  This omelette sucks."  Then we laughed and told shitty food stories for awhile, starting with how bad a cook I am.  Instead, I guess I should have said, "Guess this omelette is not hitting the spot today."  Data.  No judgement.  Nothing more to say.

Maybe as I get better at this it won't seem so lifeless to me.

I'm pretty sure I haven't actually left a wide swath of hurt feelings in my path of family and friendships.  People seem to like me well enough and appreciate how I behave in the groups I frequent.  I think.  I hope.  But there is always room for improvement and I've been knocked silly by recent events, so I'm all in with trying to rid myself of commentary that may serve some purpose in the moment, but as Hub warned, can also ultimately be isolating if no one can live up to what may be interpreted as my exacting standards, I guess.  Don't want that, so hey, live and let live.  Then I'll decide how much of how you are living I can accept in order to remain in integrity with my own life.  A girl's gotta draw the line somewhere.

At least, that's the view from here...©

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