I started thinking about helicopters and marriage the other day at 5 A.M.

I hate waking up a couple of hours before my alarm is supposed to go.  I also hate waking up a couple of hours before my alarm is supposed to go and then one of the kid alarms (Jaxon usually) wakes up an hour before the hour that my alarm is supposed to go off.  You just sit there trying to go back to sleep, hoping another kid alarm isn't going to go off before your legit alarm does and then you think you are hearing things from the kids and then you check and it's nothing, and then your mind turns on and then you fall asleep just before the frickin' alarm actually does go off and then you are sooooo tired that you wonder why you couldn't just shut off your brain and relax so you could get that extra hour or so. (yes that was a run on sentence.)  It's also times like that where I have some thoughts, some random and some legit.  Sometimes both.  Here are two of my thoughts I had, one about a helicopter and my class, and one about marriage.

Helicopters and My Classes.
I bought an Air Hogs mini 4 channel helicopter the other day when the kids were spending their money that Grandpa Barry and Grandma Gail gave them for Christmas.  (I also wanted to relive my childhood and buy an X-Wing/Tie Fighter exclusive to Toys R Us combo pack, but it was $130 and that's stupid, but I was close man, soooo close)  I tried to fly it around the house that night but I'm not super pro yet, and I crashed into pretty much everything in the joint.  So I have decided to take it to school.  I then thought, "How can I get away with flying this thing around during class?" 5A.M. it came to me. News Chopper. You know those news helicopters in big cities, well I thought that I could call my chopper, "Jared's Weekend Homework Chopper, the JWHC" and fly it around the room on Friday 5 minutes before the end of class, land it on a random spot and then pretend that there was a news report about homework "on location"  I am going to start giving my classes, especially Biology 30, Monday vocab. quizzes to keep them sharp over the weekend.  Nothing frickin' ridiculous because teachers that give whacks of homework on weekends every weekend are tools.  10 terms each weekend as a review, that's it.  The thing is, I will shoot a video with someone other than myself reading the 10 terms that they need to know.  It could start with guest stars from my department, but I would love to expand it to my Grandma, or my Mom, or Dad etc.  They could tape themselves on their phones saying the 10 terms, send me the video and I would play it for the class.  "That's dumb." you say.  Maybe, but I bet after the first couple of weeks the kids will be itchin' to see who the guest is.  This is where I want to petition someone famous at least once a semester to read the words.  Imagine, Alex Trebek, Jimmy Fallon, Steve Nash, or someone else getting on there just once in the semester to read it.  Oh, that would be money, and I think if I annoyed the crap out of one of their publicists enough they just might do it.  Anyway that was one of my thoughts.  Helicopter.

Marriage thoughts.
I thought about this awhile ago when I was trying to put down things that I have learned about marriage now that I have been forced to not be in one anymore.  I hate it that I am not married by the way, as you have probably guessed.

If I am being honest, Krista was not an easy person to please, but I think that's where I went wrong sometimes.  The "pleasing" part.  It seems to me that society has guys and girls running around doing things to "please" our partner and if we don't do these cliche things, that the other person has the right to be a little bitter because their significant other is just not meeting their so called "needs".  I did that at times with Krista, doing things that I thought were going to get me in the "good books".  So I would help her with laundry, so she didn't have to do it all, or help her clean up, or take the kids out so she could have a rest, and other things too.  Now, all those things are good things and they are important.  The thing is, that I was neglecting other things in our marriage that I knew I was supposed to be doing in order to do those other things.  For example, money is usually an issue in every marriage at some point.  Usually it's because you don't have enough, or, you think you don't have enough so that you can get what YOU want, or what YOU feel is important and a power struggle arises over the priorities of where the money should go.  (If you are reading this and you have never had this problem because you have too much money, then leave a comment where and when we can meet and I will come and punch you straight in the face because you suck.)  I was "in charge" of the money, which meant I paid the bills and was supposed to be the one in charge of truly knowing what our financial state was.  In some instances, like Krista wanting to move to a new house, she would run some prices by me and some houses with those prices.  (This means she would tell me how badly she wanted to move, that this place wouldn't do and that I needed to get on board with the program. This caused some arguments in our house, but just so you know, we really were quite happy at the end of our time together because of what I am going to talk about after this parenthesis.)  I would tell here that we couldn't afford it because I was pretty sure that we couldn't.  I didn't REALLY know what our max amount was, I just was scared.  She would then go through the books with a fine toothed comb and figure out how much we could afford etc, etc, while I stood by in a daze, trying to figure out where she was wrong instead of really working with her.  The thing is, I should have known all along what our Max amount was.  If I had been spending time on our books like I was supposed to be, then I would have known, I would have been confident, and most importantly, she would have been able to trust me.

I DON'T LIKE SPENDING TIME DOING THE BOOKS.  It's depressing when you don't have what you wish you had and so I just did not do a good job of doing the books.  Instead, I thought to myself, "Hey, you don't really like doing the books but you want your wife to be happy, so instead of doing what is right for YOUR marriage, why don't you just help her out with all the stereotypical stuff that women are supposed to appreciate.  That way you can please her and appease your urge to procrastinate on one of the essential jobs of the home, the budget, and everyone wins."  Everyone wins until Krista wanted to know what was up with the books and then we ALL lost.  I was upset with her for wanting stuff, she was upset with me for not knowing what I should know, and you know what?  What it really broke down too was that trust was broken.

I think that trust in each other is the greatest issue in marriage.  Amount of sex, money, time spent together all are issues that end up coming back to trust.  Krista and I had a conversation when we were driving on a trip.  Trips were good for talking for us, especially when the kids have headsets and a movie on in the back.  We talked about roles in our marriage and we really defined them.  Krista said to me that when I "helped" her out, she actually felt like what I was telling her that she wasn't doing a good enough job.  I never thought that. She said, it's like we need to have two houses that work together to have our family work.(her roles and my roles)  Then she said this and I'll never forget it. "GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!" Her point being that I needed to get out of her roles.  I said the same thing to her, "You have to get out of my house too!  If I'm out of yours and I am trusting you to do your roles, then you have to trust me too."  I'll never forget that conversation because we went from a place of confusion to clarity and it really did help.  We began to trust each other again, and not have non-described expectations of each other.  We knew each other again.  I think having kids and having flux in life requires these conversations from married couples more than we think.  I hope that if you are married that you have had, or will have conversations that are real, non-judgmental, with the idea of moving forward together towards a trust in the goodness of your spouse.  To really know that they love you for who you are, that they want you to be your best.  That's where we all start it seems. We just lose our focus on the positives of the other person and dwell on our needs not getting met.  Not ALL the time, but both Krista and I felt better about how our marriage would move forward after that conversation.  That conversation was over Easter break and she passed away a few months later.  I thank God for that conversation, time we had in the car, and the actions we took because of it in our marriage.  Now I don't have the nagging feeling of, "If only we could have had things in a really great place before she died."  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that stuff to guilt you into something.  I'm not saying,  "Make sure things are right before you die."  Well, I guess I am, but not to make you feel bad about things if they are bad.  It's more of an encouragement that you can really have things in a good place with your spouse,  it's not always frickin' easy, but it's worth a look.

Anyway, I said I wouldn't proofread this and I'm not going to (well I did a bit to be honest) because I typed a lot and need to go to bed soon.  If you are still reading this then you must really have been bored.  Also, I lost three pounds this week just in case you were tallying it up at home, which you weren't.  Maybe I'll wake up at 5AM another day, nah, that's what NyQuil is for.  Enjoy your week.