The most important reason to F in a relationship....

You see thousands of articles in nearly every magazine or online site about how important sex is to a marriage or relationship. But the truth is that is not the most important "f," forgiveness is. I will even go as far as to say that without the F of forgiveness, it makes the "f" of sex much more difficult to achieve.

When it comes to me, I do not want to share the most intimate parts of myself with someone I am mad or upset with. I want to figuratively and literally pull myself away from them.It has been said that intimacy also has little to do with sex. Intimacy is the person you share the scary news about a freckle on your shoulder, the details of the latest and most crazy choices your siblings have made, intimacy is who I go to when I want to sit and be silent and let the events of a day congeal because I can not process it all at once. When you are truly open yourself up to other people, they see you... your flaws, your stupidity, all the ways you feel like a failure, the things you fear most, and then you hand them the knife and tell them the easiest ways to hurt you.

No matter which version of intimacy is being given... you literally have to give up you protective layers, allow yourself to be vulnerable and open yourself up.

In a marriage or relationships the only people who don't make mistakes are the people who aren't doing anything. Everyone else, makes mistakes. We forget things. We mess up. We do some things because we know the other person will overlook them and they will accept us, while others we don't know that we are hurting them because we are selfish and oblivious to how our actions can be misconstrued.  Regardless of our intention... we mess up. It's life.

However, here is the real difficulty... the F...forgiveness.

I am stubborn and hard headed.
I am mean and cruel when I feel like my needs are not important and not acknowledged.
I am a grudge holder.
I hate to give forgiveness.

Sadly... I also despise it when people do not readily give me forgiveness when I mess up and admit my flaws. Yes, I know that it makes me a hypocrite. I have a terrible time admitting when I wrong. And thus it means that in my head... if I FINALLY admit I am wrong, I want forgiveness IMMEDIATELY. But that is not an easy F to get or give.

Forgiveness is hard. Actually giving forgiveness to people who have hurt you... SUCKS. I literally have had to learn to forgive people. You don't forgive people for them. Forgiveness is for you. Sometimes you have to forgive people who have NEVER asked for forgiveness because staying mad is "drinking poison and expecting the other person to die..." Forgiveness is for your head and heart to let go. Forgiveness is the most important F because it frees your mind of hostility and allows you to move on and be yourself.

Anger,  if left to fester will twist and turn your thoughts and heart into ugly twisted craggy branches of the bitterness tree and that tree will grow roots that dig and break your commitment to someone... Those roots of bitterness and anger will crumble the very bedrock of love and adoration you had for them.

Remember the person...not the actions.
Forgiveness is like commitment...
Remember YOUR commitment regardless of their actions.

Makes the choice to forgive and tell your bitterness and anger to F off. ;0)

Impatience and being an ADULT

I am impatient.

I want things to work.

I want answers and instant perfection.

The problem with this, is that people are not perfect. They are fallible and have free will. And I love the idea that people can choose their path and have the right to make mistakes and learn from them...  but I hate it when mistakes are made. Maybe I just love the idea that I CAN learn from my mistakes.In fact, maybe I might even be a bit of a narcissistic that I think that my mistakes are smaller and less ugly than other peoples. But that isn't the truth. I am fallible and stubborn and opinionated as deep as the ocean and as blue as the twilight.

I am most impatient with the people I love most. I am the biggest advocate for me being allowed to make mistakes and often want people to forgive me instantly; however, I struggle with grudges. I struggle with wanting people to do what I want on my timing. Maybe I've watched too many movies and I am  too much of an idealist. Maybe I have been burned too many times and think that I "deserve" it.  I think that I am the most hard on people I love because I believe that they are genuinely the people that I see them in. I see the people they want to be. I see the people that they should be. I  think maybe I am too hard on people and need to allow them room to make mistakes.

Mistakes aren't the problem with being infallible. Mistakes are a big part of growing. As kids, we learn from making mistakes. Kids learn the word, "feet," and want to apply it like everything else and will tell you that they have " two feets." They understand the rule that foot/feet are unusual and want soo badly to be reinforced that they overly try and use "feets." We as adults think that we have out grown this.

The truth of the matter is, even as adults we seek approval and want to make others happy even when we do not have all the answers. We get impatient. We think we have all the answers. We are not uneducated as was the case of the little kids; we are still seeking approval. The problem is that we don't understand the rules of how to be "adults."

I wish I knew all the rules about how to be an adult. Unfortunately, being an adult is like every word that is atypical in the English language. Adulthood is every one of the mice/mouse, foot/feet, moose/moose, good/better/best atypical no normal rule to follow words that make learning language harder.... except then we add emotions, bills, and other people who are also trying to speak to us using the same faulty system of no typical words.

Stir that up... add humanity and impatience and it's no wonder we grow up and feel lost. It's no wonder adults struggle with communication. We seek approval . We strive for perfection but our communication is confusing. We are not all taught how to interact the same. Some families are affection and teach a language and behavior of affection. While others are successful and teach their children the value of success. No one way is right or wrong. I believe that kids need a good work ethic and a desire to be successful. I also am very comfortable and feel a high need for affection; both give and receive. I get impatient when people do not communicate with me in ways that I am used to  and I am an adult. I am ONE adult. And I struggle greatly with these concepts.

It's no wonder that communication is hard.

It's no wonder that being impatient with others is a knee jerk reaction...

We are all trying to accomplish the goals we believe to be best while speaking an imperfect language with other people who speak imperfectly and are also fallible.

And I get impatient and fussy when things are not going smoothly. It is NOT that I do not care about the other people. It's rather the polar opposite. I care soo much that I want things FIXED, NOW.

I am impatient,

I do want things to work.

But maybe instead of wanting perfection, I need to look for growth.
And maybe instead of just finding the mythical "answers," maybe I need to really know what my questions are.

I need to open my heart and focus on the person and less on the answers.
I need to open my close mind and figure out that two steps forward, one step back isn't a set back but is still forward momentum....

Here's to forward momentum and the death of impatience.