Backstory: This was a drop-in, you won’t find it on the List. Here’s what happened:

My darling husband, Thor (the name he picked for himself for when he’s mentioned here), has been checking every Sunday to hear about what I’ve done and what I’ve drawn for the coming week. He’s made some excellent suggestions along the way, and helped me to rehash and reevaluate post-Nudge thoughts. A few times I’ve asked if he’s wanted to do the Nudge with me, but he’s always declined. Up till this week.

We’ve both been super-busy with work commitments, with additional events happening after hours and on weekends. It’s a lot. And lately I’ve found our daily check-in conversation goes something like this:

Venus: How was your day?

Mars: Fine.

Venus: How are you?

Mars: Fine.

Venus: What’s on your mind?

Mars: Nothing.

So yesterday we took Louie the dog out for a long walk and caught up. After our usual check-ins (see above), he shared with me that he’s dragging around the weight of not knowing what he wants to do with the last half of his life, a dilemma I can certainly relate to. Many of our friends are retiring from careers and now have time to pursue long-time passions and hobbies. What might ours be? We’ve talked about signing up for classes, brainstorming, getting creative about figuring this out…. No surprise, to him (to many of us) the prospect of figuring out The Rest of Our Lives is overwhelming.

I shared with him the questions Saeeda shared with me during our interview a couple of months ago (read it here): Not “What do you want to do?” in life, but “How do you want to feel?” There are no right/wrong answers, I said to Thor. “You can pick intellectually challenged, silly, strong, relaxed, content, intrigued, entertained…let’s start with how you’d like to feel and we’ll figure out the doing part later.”

Over brunch I suggested we brainstorm some ideas for this. Not happening. Okay. But mid-afternoon he told me he’d decided his Nudge for this week would be “Go to the gym 3 times.” Perfect.

I will be doing this Nudge with him. It’s my hope that we’ll go to the gym together on some, if not all, outings, but since he likes to get up at 4:00 am (and I, well, don’t), we’ll see how it goes.

As we head into this week, I’m thinking about how having someone as an accountability partner can nudge us a little further. Or it can simply make it more fun. If you don’t have a spouse or significant other, think about asking a friend to join you in a Nudge. If that doesn’t feel comfortable to you, then consider making me your partner. Share your chosen Nudge for the week, update me in comments, and at the end of the week, let me know how you did. Let’s encourage each other to fuller lives.

What Happened: Monday morning, 4:55 am: “Kath. It’s time.”

My darling likes to get up at 4:00 am on weekdays, have his coffee, watch the news, clean the kitchen (I told you he’s a gem), then be at the gym when they open their doors at 5:00 sharp. I aspire to this, but my days are really really long and I get really really tired. I begged off on this first day. However, a couple of hours later, when my to do list threatened to consume all of today and tomorrow, I remembered my commitment to this Nudge and got myself out the door. Got my workout in and checked off the first of three days. Yay!

Tuesday morning I was up and dressed before Thor gave me my five-minute warning. We got to the gym, got in our workouts, and got our days started. Wahoo!

Wednesday: I don’t know if this is allergies or a cold or my body just crying uncle. I’m out. Thor had an especially long day ahead, so he went into the office to prep early. There’s still time to do this.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday…(see “Wednesday”).

The Ah-Ha: You know, “best laid plans” and all. We both got two outta three, and I’ll take it. It was fun to come up with this idea and pursue it together, and I’m proud of us for giving this a shot.

I also realize this whole creative Nudging adventure is not really Thor’s thing, and I won’t push him to actively participate with me each week, but I do hope we’ll figure out other Nudges we can do together.

I asked Thor for his ah-hah on his first full Nudging experience and got, “It was fine.”

I’m good with that.