Avoiding Conflict By Dr. Juan Harrison

Dull is nice.  I did my world traveling as a young man among the Pyramids of Giza, bull fights in Barcelona, skiing in the Swiss Alps, several trips to Paris and the Eifel Tower and Gardens of Versailles, following Christ’s steps by the Jordan River and the Sea of Galilee.  My wife of 50 years has designated me as a bump on the log and plans her trips with her friends or my sister.

I love home.  I love staying at home.  It doesn’t take my wife long to get the itchy twitches as she’s ready for a road trip or longer.  I don’t mind going places around home; I just miss my home, my bath, my routine.  I want my wife to get used to going and doing without me.   I think she enjoys herself more as the girls giggle and shop and visit the fufu shops.  I’d rather be working.

As a younger family we spent our fair share of traveling in all directions as Clay’s military assignments and Ryan’s college ballgames kept us crisscrossing the country.  Grandkids came as we followed them to California, Virginia, Colorado, and numerous other states.  Great memories, great fun.

I think part of the issue was trying to find the time to balance our regular jobs and side businesses to find us openings in our hectic schedules. Maybe working 2 and 3 jobs at a time tends to make a person tired and just wanting to chill and not have to always be some place.  Just knowing these days that I’m not a prisoner of emails and multiple meetings a day over most of my life just makes me want to sigh.

I think these days it’s not a lot of fun to do much driving as the wife tends to reach for the dash or screech out from time to time when I’m behind the wheel.  More and more I’ve tried to get her to drive so that I could do my share of dash grabbing and screechy little outbursts.  Seems like being in a confined automobile for very long tends to bring out the worst at times.  Not saying I don’t need criticism for my driving; just saying seems like it’s a source of contention.  At my age I’d gladly do anything to reduce the likelihood of conflict.  Fussing is not my favorite thing.  That’s about the time when I am ready to retreat to another location, but unfortunately, there ain’t much room to retreat to in moving automobile.

By Dr. Juan Harrison