let me finish!

so one of my sons was playing this video game on PS2, some action-packed, blood & gore fest involving some ancient warrior's quest for something important. but in the midst of all this are these assorted puzzles, i.e., fill in numbers 1-9 so each column totals 15.

one sort of puzzle requires you to shift pieces into the right places so they make a complete bull's-eye. you have six moves in which to do this. this morning, as my husband was on the computer, i solved the one that no one in the house had solved yet. (yay me!) so when my son happened upon another one, naturally i wanted to try.

but my better half kept interrupting me while i was trying to figure it out. he wouldn't let me finish my thoughts, pausing me to say, "honey, try this" or "i would do that." he would tell me what he wanted to do, and i would say, "we can't do that because it would introduce white space into the puzzle." i would then try to go back to thinking, but he would interrupt me again. i finally resigned to just sit there and watch him, inwardly irritated that i couldn't do it on my own.

and maybe his "helping me" shouldn't have gotten on my nerves, but it did. it really, really did.

see, i'm an overachiever, an independent one at that. i like to do things without assistance, unless i ask for it. if i'm trying to work out something like, oh i don't know, a puzzle on PS2, i need time to just sit there and think about it. i need to look at it for a while and see what i can see, without the "help" of someone else trying to help me.

and i know he meant well. i know he was just trying to help solve the puzzle. but all he was doing was making me feel like my ideas weren't good enough, like i was taking too long to think, and that what i might come up with might not work anyway.

this is something that happens more often than i'd like with us. if my husband thinks something i'm suggesting won't work, he'll stop me before i finish my thought to explain in great detail why he disagrees. i'll finally get to say something that lets him know that what he was objecting to was not what i was suggesting, and he'll then say, "why didn't you say that?" to which i am forced to reply, "because you didn't let me finish my thought."

now if only for the sake of women's lib, i would love to say that i never do that to him, but such is not the case. i too have the tendency to finish his thoughts incorrectly, respond accordingly, then have to bring my emotions back down once i realize we were talking about two different things.

why do we do this to each other? are we really so insensitive or self-involved? hardly. we do it because we think we know each other as well as we know ourselves. we think we can finish each other's thoughts; we think we know what the other is thinking. based on that assumption, we respond, sometimes doing exactly what people who assume do. but we do it in love, and we do it out of that place in us that is constantly aware of (and in love with) the other person.

so when my husband tries to take over while i'm playing a game or trying to make a point, i'll remember the loving place from which that urge originates. and instead of shooting daggers at him behind his back, i'll smile.

ps - he figured out the puzzle ... without my help.