Having been married for 38+ years, it's simply amazing that we continue to learn how to get along better.  Although we are vastly different - I come from a fighting family, he couldn't fight with me if I ran over him with a bus; I love the night life, he is a morning person; I love music and dancing, he is tone deaf and has two left feet; I love the city, he is a country boy - we have a way better than average marriage.  And we continue to work at improving our life together.  Recently we had a discussion that made us both stop and say "AHA!" 

While driving, we were discussing our latest home improvement project, which is dry-stacking decorative stones on two basement walls.  Envisioned as a "group effort," it has quickly turned into his project.  I have tried to assist, but our work styles are so diferent that there is virtually no common ground. 

For instance, he has dozens of stones laid out helter-skelter on the floor, and told me he needed one about eight inches long.  Not only could I not focus on individual stones, but the length of any one seemed unknowable within the sea of rock.  And I could not walk among the stones.  So I began what seemed to me a logical first step (although he was already deep into the project):  I began to reorganize the stones on the floor by size.  It only made sense to me that when looking for a particular size it would be helpful if the stones were organized by size.

But, back to our car conversation . . . I commented about my dream version of how this would have worked:  We would spend time together fitting the stones and mortaring them in, chattering about how great it was looking and what a terrific change in the room.  Bill said he just wanted to get it done.  I looked at him with puzzlement, and said that the journey is more than half the fun.  He remarked that his eye is always on the destination. 

AHA!

We decided that I am all about "process," while he is "product" oriented.  I want to enjoy whatever's along the way, and he just wants to get there and then have his fun.  This explains so much!  Perhaps in some unspoken and marginally recognized way we had realized this years ago and worked around it.  But actually defining it was a happy revelation. 

Bill is continuing the project pretty much on his own, although I venture into the mix occasionally to add my two cents and to marvel at the progress.  I've even placed a stone or two of my own.  The truth is that without a process there is no product, and no product can exist without the necessary process.