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Friday, December 12, 2014

Couples Therapy

A good relationship means you communicate, trust, and work as a team. I take every day with Angela as a new opportunity to fine-tune our well-oiled machine. Every day is beautiful and an opportunity to learn something new. When Angela took me out for a surprise date, I didn't realize those relationship lessons were about to be tested.

When we drove up to Long Beach harbor at 8pm I had no idea what Angela had planned. All I could tell was the harbor was very pretty with Christmas lights reflecting in the water. Then I saw them, a group of hydrobikes! For those of you that don't know what hydrobikes are, they are basically a bike that is held up by 2 canoes. They look ridiculous and I was excited to try one! Angela and I do everything together and apparently this was no exception; we arrived a little late and the only bike they had left was a couple's hydobike.
As we prepared for our journey through the magnificently decorated canals of long beach we discovered you can't just turn the handle bars to turn this bike. Everything you do has to be synchronized. One of you has to peddle backwards and the other has to peddle forewords simply to turn. Also to go straight, we both had to peddle at the same time at the same intensity or we would start turning. So when the boat started drifting off course (which it often did) we needed good communication to figure out what the problem was.
Unfortunately the problem was that I am embarrassingly out of shape. I felt like I was going to have to turn back after 5 min of the hour and a half tour. I was enjoying myself a lot so I just stuck it out and didn't complain. Once again I just have to let you all know how great my wife is. When we stated drifting the wrong way, it was most likely because I wasn't pulling my own weight. Angela could have bossed me around, she could have made me feel guilty for not keeping up, and she could have even taken the opportunity to make jokes at my expense. But she didn't blame me once, NOT ONCE! She assumed the boat was broken and took it as a new challenge.  

Why this post is called couples therapy is because we both had control of this boat. And a lot of times when people share control they get bitter, bossy, or snarky.  I felt like we were both Buddy the elf just smiling at everything. We passed this test, and it was so much fun! With the gorgeous shimmering water and the sparkling red and green lights, I am so grateful for all the adventures my wife and I share. I know this is going to sound silly but I'm grateful for being grateful because it's wonderful to know how good I have it.

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