Spent the evening building desks and listening to fiction as I did. It was not the ideal scenario. I would’ve preferred being in the same space as my partner as she and the daughter painted cabinets and made the house prettier. Instead I was separate and that was just a further reflection of how I self isolate as a rule. I should have done a different task today and done the desk building when she wasn’t in the house with me.
The goal of this task—this house–for me is to bring us closer together and build a foundation for long term happiness. That doesn’t necessarily work if I am isolating or if I stumble into saying the absolute wrong thing or make the ladies feel as though the work they are doing is not valued.
I believe I did every one of those things in honest but short sighted comments about the work being done. There was a question about interiors of cabinets that I expressed a lack of concern for, and clearly I was supposed to offer more concern and interest rather than suggest cutting new shelves. The comment about new shelves was meant to be an argument for cost effectiveness (one piece of MDF cut multiple times by me vs. the work of repainting and then buying and laying contact paper on the existing shelving. Unfortunately, that statement openly degraded the incredible work that had been done on the cabinets up to that point.
It didn’t help that I was tired and distracted by my own building failures with the desk and growing disappointment that I wasn’t actually doing things with her.
I want this to be an us thing and I will continue trying to make it that.