My Dirty Little Secret (according to my husband)

My Dirty Little Secret (according to my husband) Rules to Live By by WillistonLetterCo Oh, my husband. Yall flattered him so much with his first guest post (and rightly so!) that he told me he had something new cooking up for you guys. I was so excited when he dropped this in my Inbox last week (hes very mysterious about his posts, and only lets me know that hes even writing one by saying, Im working on another post for your blog but thats it! He wont say anything else! Adorable) that I couldnt share it right away. Here ya go! I have a recurring dream when I’m stressedâ€"I’m being chased. Who is chasing me varies; it can be zombies, or vampires, or the military. Just the other day I was Chevy Chase’s character in “Memoirs of an Invisible Man” and I was being hunted down by Sam Neil with a dart gun. During the dream I’m frightened, anxious and running for my life. When I wake up, I usually have a good laugh. It’s a theme that I find humorous because it is clear to me that this dream represents the stressors in my life. I find it humorous that my brain is so literal that it creates these easily-interpreted scenarios. I also find it humorous because I represent this same anxiety to the woman I love. For you see, I am nearly un-coachable. It is Michelle’s dirty little secret. I am the fish head-eating child Hugo she keeps in her attic. I am the high school yearbook nestled at the bottom of her closet. I am Roger Clinton. And it is not intentional. I am not trying to hurt my wife or harm her reputation in any way. Like many of you, I am who I am. I’m a creative person, searching for that balance in my life of stability, creativity and freedom. I know what it’s like to wonder every day, “What am I doing? Why am I doing this? Who left this sandwich here?” These are the things that often keep me up at night. Mostly the sandwich thing, because let’s face it, if someone is randomly leaving food in your home, you’ve got a ghost/elf/Martha Stewart problem. Within every creative person there is conflict. That’s why we’re creative. Creativity is the result of confronting and engaging conflict, as far as I see it. The problem is that sometimes the conflict wins over the creativity, and that’s when we as creative people find ourselves sad, depressed and ready to give up on our dreams. You know, all the reasons why we hire a life coach. Because she is an amazingly talented life coach, my loving wife recognizes these moments in me, and wants to help. It will begin slowly, with a conversation about my day or what’s on my mind, and then I’ll find myself saying to her, “Stop life coaching me and just let me vent.” Which she does (sometimes begrudgingly) because as someone who wishes to help, she also knows when to step aside and watch from the sidelines. And while this inevitably does help, it also frustrates my poor wife because even though the life coach in her is working properly, the wife in her wants to just take my conflict away. I appreciate this, and while I don’t always welcome it, I do understand it. But like I said, this conversation helps, and 99 times out of 100, I wind up doing the task that stressed me out in the first place. So why am I telling you all of this? For two reasons. Number 1, I want to say to all of you out there that read these blogs looking for help that while the journey is difficult, it is not impossible. Even though my amazing spouse will end our conversations exasperated, she has made an impact. I know how to balance my life more so now than I ever did, and that is due in large part to her skills as a life coach, her ability to listen and her never-ending desire to help those of us who need to find order in our self-made chaos. And while this may come across as a blatant promotion for my wife, it’s not. It’s just to reassure the creative pragmatist that stares at you in the mirror every morning that there is light at the end of the tunnel. The second reason is this. Much like my zombies, vampires and werewolves keep me on my toes, and keep me going, well, that’s kind of my job too. I’m here to constantly remind my wife that her work isn’t done, that she must continue to help those of us in need and that she is needed. Just in a non-monster sort of way. **********************************************************************************************