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Love

I know it sounds cliche, or maybe just nuttyheads, but I actually used to worry about becoming too emotionally attached to Vitaliy. I’m not used to becoming emotionally attached to people in a big way.

But we’ve been together on a trip for 2 days now, and it’s been really sweet just realizing in a new way what an amazing friendship we have.

Yes, there have been times in our marriage when we’ve had “certain issues” we couldn’t calmly talk about (like money), so they became silence areas. But with time, even those issues have become talkable, meaning great talks with no arguments.

We’ve talked about a lot of things. It’s what we do for friendship and relationship. Vitaliy thinks other couples might do other things together to feel closeness, like sports or business, or something. For us, it’s talkingtalkingtalking. We analyze, philosophize, plan, theologize …

It’s become a deep, emotionally-fulfilling reservoir of a friendship. Probably the deepest friendship I have ever experienced.

I just wanted to enjoy and record these realizations.

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I think I’m getting close to a resolution for this moment of searching and re-ordering my life. I have enjoyed this process, actually. I’ve learned a lot.

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One thing I did was use this site to take a personality test. The test was free, and I purchased the e-book about my particular personality type.

Oh. My. Word.

[enter a moment of speechlessness.]

I won’t get into everything. And I’m not going to tell you everything I wrote in my exploratory writing (you can thank me for that).

I had Vitaliy take the test, too. They actually have it in Russian. It explained him to me a lot.

It really helped me understand. A lot. About myself. About him. The booklet I read even gave tips about how the two of us can be married (it really recommended hiring a housekeeper, imagine that), and how I can have friends.

So, I’m not going to share most of it, but I want to say a few main ideas that helped me. We had a long conversation in the van yesterday, about having vision mostly. I come to vision as someone who is able to 1) see a future that is not in existence but is potential, 2) use my vision as a means to fill my inner need to express my core values through goals, etc., and 3) pretty eloquently talk about what I’m doing, why I’m doing it, my ideas, etc. I really enjoy this process and live in it. It’s about as important as, if not more important than, the actual doing.

Vitaliy … does not really like the idea of vision. Though he has one. It’s hard to … get to it, because he just states it as a phrase, and that’s it. He doesn’t eloquently express or communicate well his vision. He also is put off by projecting his vision as a future plan. His need is fulfilled by what he concretely did in the past (for that vision) and what he sees himself doing concretely today for this vision. Well, maybe it’s not entirely true, because he does have one idea right now about his life vision; he just doesn’t pounce on the idea and mentally grow it to magnanimous proportions, as I tend to do. He’s waiting for the opportunity to perhaps “do” his vision in this way. He doesn’t need to nor enjoy dreaming about it.

 

From these realizations, I have a few helpful insights for myself:

  1. From this booklet– this thought was very insightful: “The battle for acquiring or maintaining the energy to go forward will be almost entirely decided in an Advocate’s thoughts.” (p.40)

That is a bingo. And hence, all my thinking.

2. In my exploratory writing about this, I wrote this sentence, and it means a lot to me. I think it’s a main thing I need to do right now:

“I would like to start appreciating/valuing that the time and commitment that I’m giving to my family (home school, missionary life) is being true to my core values.”

It helps me to honor that my life now, as it is, with all its seeming smallness and limitations, is me being true to what I value. I don’t have to be doing some big, out there thing in order for me to be true to my core values.

3. I am an idealist. My ideals highly motivate me. So, Vitaliy really urged me that, in home schooling, I need to develop that idealism and conviction. I need to let my idealism, individuality, and conviction grow and express itself. And I need to pray about this, I am praying about it now. … I have put off doing this because I honestly realize that home schooling is not for everyone, and I’m not mentally committed to doing it forever. … But it is for me, right now.  I have to be honest that I have other options, and this is what I’ve chosen, just like in birth. So as an idealist person, as I did home birth and unattended birth from my ideals and convictions, I need to do this with home schooling. I can have and fulfill my idealism without injuring, insulting, or judging others who don’t share those ideals. There. My intense need to be compassionate to others doesn’t need to override my intense need for ideals.

4. OK, in my exploratory journal writing, I realized that my past self-experience is making me nervous about becoming attached to my family life in this idealistic way  … because I feel like I have betrayed myself in the past. I have had ideas and goals that totally didn’t work. I really enjoyed them mentally, and they actually guided my life in good ways. But I don’t see “success” in them in the way I “envisioned” them. And I end up feeling trapped and frustrated by it.

So, in coming to my family, I don’t want to manically latch onto this “idea” and start dreaming up a bunch of stuff and then wreck the good things I have now already. I want to come to this in a wiser way. I’m thinking about this.

5. I want to learn from Vitaliy how to loosely hold a general vision and seize the opportunities to live it out as they come up. Vitaliy is good at doing things. I’m good at imagining and valuing things. But I end up feeling left in the dust because he’s actually doing things while I’m … just imagining things and going along with what he’s doing (and not attaching value to what I am actually doing). On the other hand, I am not Vitaliy, so the way I take up opportunities might look different, more studied or whatever, but I wrote in my journal: “I wish to be more adventurous and spontaneous. But in a planned and methodical way.” Ha! But one example– I want to be taking the girls to the children’s theater house more often. They do ballets and operas and neat-o stuff. But I don’t do it. Why? I need to find some way to do it, either spontaneously or in a planned way. And maybe I need to convince myself more clearly that this is one way I can express my core values– then I will find a way to do it.

OK, this is what I’ve come to so far.

🙂

when Vitaliy gets a little upset at me

So I was writing yesterday about my life questions, and I want to remember a conversation I had recently with Vitaliy.

Well, a weekend or two ago, we attended a missions conference, and that’s what makes all these questions come to the surface again, but now it’s all after 20 years of living (instead of how I used to deal with issues before having lived 20 years of life, marriage, kids, etc.) So, I’m trying to ask smarter questions of myself and of God, for one thing, as I move through this time.

Anyway … so I was telling Vitaliy about how I don’t understand certain things in my life, things that look like starting and quitting or failing and stupid dreams– for what?. Mostly things from having kids that had to be put away, the constraints of marriage, and stuff like that.

And … he almost got mad at me. He was pretty upset that I cannot see and value my life as it is. He is emphatically sure that all the fruit of whatever life/ministry he has is directly shared by me. And do I not realize all the words I’ve said to him that then come out of his mouth when he’s counseling other people? And do I not realize how much it affected his life to have caught himself his last two babies– and whose idea was all that??

So anyway, how sweet is that.

But I don’t believe it. I mean, on a logical level, I understand and agree with what he’s saying. But at an emotional level, I don’t feel like it’s true. I don’t value it in a way that has meaning for me.

So ….

[life pause]

It’s the issue of my expectations of my life compared against what my life really is. If I can reframe my expectation of my life as simply doing the will of God– then that is something I can connect to emotionally over time. And it’s connecting to God Himself through His Spirit, in order to live it out.

And in analyzing my life looking back, I see that God has valued more His ability to sanctify me through what I’m doing. He doesn’t so much value that my life it looks like I’m doing a big thing in the world.

Duh.

So how can I guide myself into emotionally valuing doing and being God’s will? (as opposed to my current default of assigning emotional value to some other perceived achievement) …

Hm.

Need to think about this with God.

Брак: его мечта стала моей

Одна классная вещь о браке– мы можем иметь и делиться друг с другом нашими целями, и они становятся общее.

Да, это так, что каждый из нас жертвовал некоторые мечты ради нашего брака. Но вместе этого, приходят другие, новые, общие мечты.

Когда я написала мои цели для 2016-го года, у меня не была каких-то особых мечтах для моего отношения с Виталием. Уже так приятно. … Поставила цели, помочь и поддерживать ему в достижении его обязанности (в учебе, евангелизации, и т.д.).

В общем, я уже давно тоже хотела начинать делать что-то спортивно с ним. Он ОЧЕНЬ спортивный человек, и это просто естественно для него. Катанья на лыжах, на каяке, лазить по скалам …  И он мечтает, чтоб я это тоже занимался с ним.

Я вспомню, ходила с ним ночью на зимнюю рыбалку–он это любит и хотел с лучшим другом. Да, это было типа романтика. Ходила раз на занятия по скалолазание. … Но ограничивали меня 2 вещи: маленькие дети и небольшой интерес в таких вещах.

Но он так столько делает чтобы быть со мной— он делает то, что мне нравится, когда ему не очень…. И его пример меня вдохновила тоже так служить ему.

И это было вчера. … Мы ехали кататься на лыжах…. И вау! Такой сказочный день!!

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Такая романтика! И такой терпеливый учитель! Он умеет проанализировать и объяснить каждый движение.

В низу:

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На верху:

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Я вспомню, что я каталась на лыжах только один раз в детстве, и не очень понравилась. Но вчера, я была открыта, чтобы опять попробовать—- и мне очень понравилась!!! Я так улучшилась за два часа! (Была готова учиться!)

Самые лучшие моменты: подняться на подъемник. 😀 И мы тоже вот так катались: он меня обнял из задний, его лыжи снаружи, мои в середине, и мы так катались два раза. (Он так и учил дочку раньше.)

Вечером, мы ужинали в уникальном кафе.

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Ну что! Мы исполняли его мечту! И это было классно! Давай еще раз!