Grandma Henke

Okay, I have a confession to make.   There are times (not often) that I’m probably not all that easy to live with.     Today might have been one of those days.    Maybe I can blame it on all the coughing I did last night that took a large cut out of the quantity and quality of my sleep.    If that isn’t good enough maybe I can blame it on the fact that I am frustrated that I can’t seem to wiggle my nose and make everything be done that will mean we can leave on our trip.   Or … I could blame it on my headache and allergies.    I think I’ll combine them all into one giant excuse so I’ll feel even more justified in having the little black rain cloud that followed me around all day today.

I don’t do well when there isn’t a definite plan.    I NEED a plan … a written plan actually.   I need to know what’s ahead and what needs to be done by a certain date and see that it is happening.    My nerves begin to fray five at a time when there is a vague plan.   I worry.   I like reservations and agendas.

I worry that there won’t be a place to park our great big house on wheels without reservations and I worry that there won’t be any openings if we don’t have them made six or seven years in advance … or at least a month or two … or something.

I accused Lynn today of being an agenda thwarter.   He was taking me on a ride to get something to eat because I had forgotten to eat all day while he was gone.   He was in a fairly good mood when we left home but after I accused him of thwarting agendas I accused him of having an agenda phobia.   I saw the tightening of his jaw as he drove down the road but I pushed on.    “Deny it,” I laughed.    He couldn’t.   He really hates it when I push for a plan.    He seems to have the reverse of what I have.   I thrive on agendas and they make him crazy.    It was a dismal moment when we realized we’d created a round hole and a square peg and they were equally important to our individual psych’s.

I’ve always know this about the man I love but I think we have both been so busy raising a family and taking care of our careers (which we could handle anyway that worked out for us individually).   I used to be in charge of the home and kids and he was in charge of the yard and civic and church responsibilities. How we did it worked for us both because we were both pretty successful in what we did.    It is quite a bit more challenging now that it is finally, once more, just the two of us.

It’s not like we argue about it, or even spend a lot of time quibbling … but it does tend to make us both a little edgy.     When I was the Executive Director of a non profit agency and had fifty or so employees all I had to do was say what needed done and people started working on it.   It was awesome.   I had fantastic employees.    When Lynn was the computer networking man for southern Utah people would call him and he’d arrange his time however he wanted, prioritizing and taking care of things on his own schedule.   He has a winning personality and everyone he helped loved him.    Sometimes they had to wait for their turn but they didn’t mind because they knew he’d get to them as soon as he could.   We had perfect jobs for our personalities.

I will probably keep making lists and agendas that have to be changed pretty much daily and Lynn will probably keep listening to audio books on his Ipod with earphones in his ears so he doesn’t have to listen to me sigh and grumble.     A little of each of us rubs off on the other.    He is reminded by my list of things he might forget and will get to them eventually … but a list will always be his boogie man.   I am reminded that one of the things I love most about him is that he is easy going.    Eventually we’ll get somewhere … who knows where we’ll park the house … but we’ll still be in love and we’ll still have fun.

One of us is just convinced we’d have MORE fun if we did it my way!