Every morning I start my day by playing having coffee with the lady and then wandering off to play a video game. I like it. It makes me feel like I start by spending time with her and then getting some me time in. I don’t know that it is going to last. The thing about being in a relationship is you have to find compromise. This may be in the order of operations or the operations themselves. As I move through life and encounter more people and learn who it is I do and don’t want to spend time with, I also learn how I do and don’t want to spend my time. For me that time usage comes down to a small list of issues and factors.
To begin, I don’t want to spend my time drowning in hate, insecurity, or any of the myriad issues or feelings associated with that. This means that I need to be happy for the most part and I need the people around me to be happy for the most part. What I am learning is that for most of the most important people in my life, being happy means the day needs to start with action. Me sitting around and gaming is not action. Me going to the office to write is not action. What is action is taking care of the chores and following up on household projects–physical jobs that show results. When that becomes the daily focus, then the day goes well. The other stuff–the gaming and writing and any other solitary habits–are better left to later in the day when nobody is around or left to directly after the physical is tended.
There are a couple of ways to look at this. I used to look at it as, ‘anything that matters to me and reflects my way needs to be sidelined for everyone else’. That isn’t reality. Instead the reality is compromise. As I stated at the top, you have to find compromise. There is space for me to be me and to sit and game and do stuff that people outside of me really don’t care about. There is just less of it. In terms of gaming, I need to set aside time outside of the hours where there are expectations upon me. In terms of writing, I do need to adjust to not writing whenever I choose to, but having a specific schedule that is respectful of compromise and how others in my life are operating.