Poise and the Well

Back in Bridges
Since my required time officially ended, I switched groups at Bridges so that I could sort of start fresh with a new group of guys. It's weird now I'm the veteran. Almost all the other guys in my new group are relative newbies. Often that fact is very obvious.
A couple weeks ago I had a fight with my wife, where we ended up texting back and forth with each other. We just went back and forth for like a hundred messages, and finally at the end when we'd exhausted ourselves we both pretty much came to the conclusion that it wasn't getting any better. I told her that I would take the dialogue between us to Todd and see what he had to say about it. Boy if I had known what would come of that, I probably would have just told her everything was my fault and forgot about the whole idea. So Todd really liked that I brought it to him. I guess I was pretty confident that I was doing most everything right, or else I wouldn't have been so eager to share my drama with an outsider.
So I gave Todd my transcript from the text war. As we came into group the next week Todd had packets for all of us. I instantly recognized my packet as a copy of my typed transcript. Todd told us that we were going to go over it and see what we could learn. I totally got behind the idea, still foolishly thinking that somehow I was going to be vindicated in all of this and finally reveal myself to be the misunderstood hero of this whole story. I should know by now that it doesn't work that way.
The whole packet is about ten pages long, and we ended up spending a hour and a half on the first page, which is basically five text messages from me, and five from her. An hour and a half! Todd tore down every single sentance, word by word. It seemed to me that he was really looking for any glimmer of dark intent on my part, any subtle insult, any hint of control. God help me, he found it. Over and over again. In less than five sentances I found myself having to fess up to the whole class. Todd would ask "what did you mean by that?" and I would have to own it "Uh, I guess I really meant 'kiss my ass.'" Shit, I really thought I was the good guy again.
Anyways, as hard as that was, I had to go back the next week and endure another hour and a half of the same thing. It was a little better this time, because I went in without any dilusion that I was going to walk away unscathed. The best part about the next class was that other guys in the group were really participating, all along I was really worried that I was boring a whole class of guys with my frivilous drama, but these guys were really identifying with it. Sometimes though they showed their enthusiasm for the idea by jumping on Todd's "You're an asshole" bandwagon, but hey, I can't fault them too much for that.
After our class got out, I had to walk through the guys waiting for class to start all holding their own copies of my traitorous transcript. As I was passing through the guantlet Todd made some crack about me not starting anymore text wars, and one of the dudes waiting stopped me. "You're the guy that did this?" I wasn't sure how he felt about me at that point so I was hesistant to jump on that grenade, "Yeah, it's me and my wife," I finally let-on. "Wow dude, this is really good stuff. I already learned a lot, I guess we all do this stuff sometimes don't we?" he said. "Yeah, I guess we do. I'm glad you liked it dude. It makes me feel better knowing that somebody else is getting something out of this too," I told him.
I left that night with a lot of good ideas about how I should approach people, especially my wife. I learned that I forget to ask questions and make a lot of statements, and then assume I know the answer to the questions I didn't bother to ask. I also learned that sometimes when I have to stand up and take Todd's beatings, that maybe somebody else is learning the same things I am. And that makes me feel like this whole thing wasn't a big pointless waste of time, maybe it's helping me become a better person and that maybe Todd isn't just being a dick to us because he can. Still though, what a dick.

Random Drivel
quotes:
Me; "Is that a rape whistle on your keychain?"
My friend Brett; "Yeah. I like to blow it. When I'm raping people."

In class the other day:
girl; "EMT is a naked sport"

Body for Life
Wow I have no excuse for my eating behavior over the christmas break. I have been eating terribly. And I think I worked out twice, and one of those times I just played basketball. The whole time I was thinking that I could just be like all the resolutioners at the gym and jump right on it when I got back from break. So I didn't do that, but at school this week Brian and I have pledged to start next week. So one way or another I'm getting my act together next week. Count on it.