when a team rocks....

we were sitting on the couch talking about
the new year. thinking of resolutions and goals
and what we wanted.

one thing led to another....and we ended up
in a conversation that i think has been one of
the most helpful conversations we've ever had.

it's been a tough year. and lately something
deep has been 'off.' neither one of us has
understood it and both of us have been feeling
frustrated with it.

the conversation kept goin' deeper.
there were some really tough moments.
when he said 'you're one hell of a woman. i'd
never tell anyone else this. but i know you can
hear it,' i cringed. oh no. this doesn't sound
good. or easy.

but it was one heck of a valid point he made.
and i did hear it. and i did know i needed to
work with what he said. that it could change
a whole lot of things for us.

'i hear you. i'll sit with it.
it's an incredible point.
i'll work with it.'
he knows me.
he knows i mean that.
and we kept goin'.

he'd say 'what i'm hearin' is this.....'
and i'd say 'yeah, but what about this. i wonder
if this is important.'
'oh yeah. we gotta look at that' he'd say.
'go deeper,' he'd say.
at one point i caught myself thinking 'he's
learned an awful lot in how to do this.'
and his logical engineering brain was kicking
in full force and making a whole lotta sense.

one time i said 'okay, there's this fear.
what about this thought process here? what
do i do with that?'
and his response was......'let me say this
first.' and he filled in a thought.

'okay, that directly answered my fear' i commented.

i loved the dance.
when one knew they had something that had to be said
right then, they interrupted. otherwise, we listened
to each other intently. the interruptions were only
made to help the thought process.

and on and on we went.

he told me what engineers do when they're trying
to figure something out.
and so we applied that to what we were doin'.

i had to fight a grin thru some of it cause he
was SUCH an engineer. then when he commented about
his lack of communication skills being a bit of
a problem, i started to laugh. said something about
an understatement of the year and he grinned at
me. we laughed thru some of the tough stuff.

i cried thru some of it.

and we both thought really hard and figured out
some amazing stuff.

it was a team tryin' to figure out a puzzle.
it wasn't easy in any sense.
but the incredible team work and the feeling that
we were in this together and we were gonna figure
this out together was overwhelming.

things came up that neither one of us realized
was going on.

there were at least four really big light bulb
moments.

i have never experienced anything like that with
anybody in my life.

i am stunned with what we just did.
i would have said it would not be possible without
a third party helping.

but we did it.
and we solved nothing.
grin.
nothing.

i don't even care right now.
i haven't felt this right about us in a year.
this solidly right.

we screw up an awful lot.
but my gosh, we do some things really really right.

that conversation was prolly one of the rightest
things we've ever done.

i have a lot to think about.
and a lot to learn.
which is okay with me.
january's coming. it's resolution time.
time to think about some growth i want to do.

the timing is perfect.