Yesterday was sort of a weird day. I got into a squabble with Kevin about something minor -- it wasn't a big thing at all, but we disagreed on how to handle it, and we had to resolve it, and neither of us really thought the others' position was all that reasonable. And I realized that we don't have so much of a mechanism for handling this kind of small squabble -- for the last few years of our relationship we had a couple of big problems looming over everything, and anything smaller than those kind of got subsumed into the big ones. And now that the big ones are (tentatively) resolved -- suddenly there's space to squabble again. To bicker. To be politely annoyed with each other. It's not big and important stuff, but it's still not so much fun, being cranky with Kev. I don't like it. Hopefully it won't come up so often.
Eventually we did sort it out; chatting with Jed on the phone put me in a more cheerful mood, and when I went back to talk to Kevin some more, he seemed somewhat chastened by my previous annoyance with him. I don't get mad very often at all, so it's nice that when I do, it actually has an effect. :-) We sorted it out, and it's all cooing doves and such now. But it did make yesterday an unhappy, wobbly day.
Some of my friends are in relationships where they seem to be squabbling most of the time. I don't know how they stand it. I think they must not take it as much to heart as we do. Maybe we should learn that skill.
Maybe not.
