When Spontaneous Sue Meets Thoughtful Tom (Are you a Sue, too?)

Hello dear friends!

I know, there’s been some silence over here. We’ve been on the busy end of tail of the life beast and somehow that has devoured my time for words. It’s not that I haven’t had things to write about, it’s just that I wasn’t taking the time to jot them down and complete them.

So often that’s how the writing process works for me. I have a thought or a bright nugget of info about some thing, after I write it down I come back to it a day later and for the next few days add to it, pick it apart like a mad surgeon and devotedly make it better and then try to stitch it up.

Sometimes, and more in the past, I would write something and post it that day. There is great value in sleeping over something. I found that out after I learned that little discipline…. whatever it’s called. Self-restraint, maybe?

By nature I’m rather spontaneous. I feel the urge and thus proceed to do it. That’s how I clean my bathroom. I don’t clean it every Friday or Saturday like regularly scheduled cleaning patterns like my in-laws. I clean it when see it needs it. Or when I get around to it. Or when I wake and some strong urge is compelling me to scrub that brown ring around the tub.

Or like when I suddenly decided to make English Muffins once. No planning. Just looked at ingredients list. I had them. Check. I made them. It was very random.

By nature my husband takes his time to think things through. Like with English muffin making he might think, “What are we eating in the next meal or two that these would go good with?” Like he’d make them if he know we would be needing them soon. Not because he was flipping through a cookbook and they caught his eye.

He represents the thoughtful and considerate side of our marriage. What he does is deliberate and carefully thought-out.  He keeps his options open til the very last min possible in case something better pops up.

This is something I had to get used to. And learn to appreciate and love.

At first it felt crushing and like the energy and life and all the fun in the world was being sucked out of me and that I was on the precipice of dying at home on our blah-brown couch and would never have fun or smile at life and nature and feel real joy again but wind up being transmuted into a characterless housewife mocked as a Sober Sally who went around with her head tilted forward and her shoulders slouched nearly touching her knees oozing lifelessness. Wallowing in a spiritless and discontent daze forever.

How could he not want to grab a canoe right now and go float down the Brazos with me this afternoon?! In the moment I was convinced I would wilt and die on the spot.

But I didn’t.

I complied to waiting and letting my hot ideas pass and eventually I realized I was still alive and well in the end. I learned that spontaneous people like me get excited in the moment and when the moment passes, we’re still breathing. Our pride might be a little nipped is all.

After our excitement dissolves, we may or may not come to see how silly and/or bad timing that idea actually was and move on, sometimes peacefully other times sulkily, maybe storing that hot idea with determination for another day – like that canoe trip we still haven’t done.

Yes, eventually we move on – to the next idea.

One of the things I liked about the discipline of crock-potting (storing) ideas is that I felt wiser. I felt like when I thought things through a bit more I ended up seeing more angles and new thoughts and other ideas that I hadn’t seen before hence just diving right in. I saw how it takes more than a whim to produce something good.

After I let my writing sit and come back to it later, I have other ideas and new thoughts pop out at me. Usually (not always) I like my words even better. I can look at the piece of writing with fresh perspective and see errors and unclear thoughts. I can see where the piece of writing is headed. Sometimes it changes direction and the point may shift to another point I didn’t even see coming.

Like everything you just read wasn’t even in my thoughts to write. I just sat down. Started typing. And that’s what came out of my fingers.

I really wanted to write about personality profiling and quizzes and the such like and what I’ve been experiencing and discovering lately in figuring out my ‘type’. But, that will have to be next time. Til then – have a great weekend, y’all!

I think it’s pretty evident here that my husband is a very wise man. I have learned so much by watching him and doing life with him. I think he’s convinced I would learn even more if I was more like him too.

{Doesn’t he look wise? And that smile that goes straight across, like he’s not even smiling but he really is, must mean that he’s a Type 4 after all. I had him pegged for a Type 2. Perhaps type 4 is his secondary type like me… Do you know what type you are?}