I mowed my front and back yard today. When I do something like yard work it gives me time in my head to think. The sound of the mower is loud enough to drown out distractions. I love analogies by the way. I think of how I mow the lawn, starting on the outside and working it, going into the sun and rewarding myself by walking into the cool shade of my house. I go around in circles and watch my progress the entire time. Seeing the shorter grass of where I once was and the long grass cast aside in my path makes me feel accomplished. I see the middle of my yard getting smaller and smaller as I make my rounds, the incline that is a pain to mow is already finished. It was my first task, the hardest part is always the first task. I remember having that same attitude with school work. In fact during the mandatory standardized tests I would flip to the back page and work from last to first. The numbers steadily going down made it less daunting. I tackle most things with this approach. C does not. When I have mentioned our differences in past blogs I mean that we are exact opposites. We can be so similar but so different. It takes me 45 minutes to ease into a cool pool. Chris is already enjoying himself having cannon balled nearly an hour earlier. It is what drives me crazy about him. I look for meaning and the why of things. He enjoys whatever I am analyzing. It is nearly symbiotic. I thought of our differences last night while meeting his "friends" at rehab. I shouldn't do friends in quotes but it is hard for me to trust his taste in friends. See that is me being tacky and pessimistic, the old me. While I am talking to these guys (and I am enjoying myself, complete 180 from the last time I visited him at rehab a couple of years ago) I am finding out that they too are the jump in the pool types. I cannot be that sort of person. Motorcycles scare the hell out of me. I cannot breathe at the top of a roller coaster before it zooms forward. I have had one gun pointed at me and it nearly did me in. I asked these guys if their past girlfriends were like me and for the most part I got a yes. I cannot loosen up enough to relax like Chris. He cannot tense up enough to be like me. At least we weren't able to before. The codependent book I read helped me with it. In fact when I recently was atop of the highest roller coaster I thought of something in that book, something about control. I am not going to control when it is my time. If that roller coaster fell off the tracks and I died then 1: what a cool way to die, 2: I couldn't have seen it coming, 3: what could I have done to prevent it? I relaxed at the top, took a deep breath and screamed. I learned a little about myself then. I learned a little about me today. If I mow the opposite direction then I really only have about 1 line of clippings to pick up. An old dog can learn new tricks when given the right steps to do so. What a positive start to my week! (FYI, that happens to be the roller coaster that I was riding in this story. I thought it was really neat that I found this pic! I did sit up front once with C and I was so tense when I got off I couldn't enjoy the rest of the day. I have never sat up front again. Yes, I am a chicken.)