when my “yes” sounds like a “no!”

i love my wife, the beautiful Val, i really do, and when i love her well, i think i love her really, really well, but when i love her badly, i can REALLY suck at it…

one way i have becoming increasingly more aware of doing this is by giving her a “yes” to a question that she asks or a request she makes for me to do something, that sounds a lot more like an emphatic “No!”

another way of describing it would be “the kicking and screaming yes” cos okay i will do what you want me to do but know that it is interrupting my selfish moment of whatever i was busy doing and that i don’t really want to do it and am quite likely only doing it cos the consequences of not doing it are so much worse…

the Truth is, not even all those statements above are even true all the time. it is usually a request [or even a reminder of something i was already meant to do] that doesn’t affect my selfish universe all that much. and a lot of the times i would love nothing more than to do a thing which helps my wife or shows her love or makes her life that little bit easier [especially if she might be stressed after a hard day] and yet somehow my ‘well intentioned Love-enducing “YES!”‘ comes out sounding like a horrible, ungrateful whiny “NO WAY! PLEASE GO AWAY AND LEAVE ME ALONE!”

i think there is some pride in there, for sure. and some power. pride and power. and possibly inertia [the preference to continue doing what i am currently doing, no matter how random it might be, as opposed to interrupting it for something else].

the reasons i am blogging about it are at least two: perhaps there are some of you husbandmans out there who will see the same thing in yourselves [maybe even some wifewomens if that is the opposite of husbandmens?] and need to do something about it. and to remind me to do something about it. i find bloggage a form of accountability as old posts get revisited from time to time and i get rechallenged or reminded by what was striking me at the time…

i plan to Love my wife Valerie better by letting my “yes”es sound more emphatically like “YES!”es!

[If you found this helpful, here are some other ideas to help you love your person well]

blowkarting…

so yesterday morning the beautiful val and i headed out to muizenberg for my super surprise birthday morning where we weere met by one of my best friends rob lloyd and his wife nicky and went for an hour’s worth of blokarting on the beach which in a nutshell is like a combo between windsurfing and go-karting and a whole lotta fun.

you get a three wheeler cart thing with a huge sail and armed with a rope (which pulls the sail tighter or lets it slacken off) and a steering wheel bar (for left and right movement) you aim the sail into the wind, catch a breeze and set off down the seaweed strewn beach dodging people and interested dogs and fishermen (who are people too, let’s not discriminate) and trying not to be blown over (was the only one who managed that one)

and yeah, you should try it cos it was a lot of fun. and those things move. apparently the top speed in one of them is something like 106km but on the beach we didn’t quite make it to that speed (probly barely passed 95) but still got quite a rush. my beautiful wife valerie was quite the dominationer at pulling a two wheeler without flipping and also apparently (i sadly missed them) gooi’d two epic 360’s at the end of the beach.

i did have to get pushed by a friendly passerby man and a fisherman (who was also friendly but less passery by) on two different occasions (and my buddy rob and even val at the end in the last journey back to tbe beginning which was the only not-as-cool part of the adventure as the wind died down and i kept getting completely bogged down in the sinkier sand) and probly my favourite part was going into the edge of the sea most of the way back and getting nailed in the face by the spray cos i was gunning it pretty epicly.

yes, so do it. and yay to my wife and her “yes, lets” policy for 2011 – life to the full indeed…