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When my parents separated last fall, I learned a few things. Having been together for 30 years, their marriage was finally crumbling, and my siblings and I were witness to it. My first lesson: people don’t change. You can’t get together with someone and think, “I could be with this person forever if [fill in the blank]. I could love this person if she resolved her anger issues. I could be happy with this person if she learned how to give me compliments once in a while. If.” Because my mom married my dad with some major “if” clauses, and guess what? He didn’t change.
You know what, though? I’m amending that lesson now, because I’ve finally figured out that people do change. People can change.
I changed.
I realized it yesterday evening. I had to go in to my old office yesterday, somewhat last minute, to do some highly confidential translation work that couldn’t be done on my home computer. I was able to leave around 5, stopped at a market for a few things on my way home, and started right in on cooking dinner when I got home around 5:45, expecting that ML would be home shortly thereafter (she typically gets home by 6). At 6:15 I get a text from her that she’d run into a friend of hers in the neighborhood of her office and was just finishing up a drink with her, and would be on her way home soon, and did I need her to pick anything up at the store?
My reaction: Oh that’s lovely that she ran into her friend! What a pleasant surprise. Let’s see, do I need anything? Nope… I already picked up what I needed. So I guess she’ll be home around 7 then… so I can pause dinner and take some time to find a B&B for our one-night city escape next weekend!
A lot of you might be sitting there thinking “ok……..” but trust me. Having that reaction without trying, without needing to convince myself of it, and without even being conscious really of what I was thinking — that’s huge for me.
You see, even just last year, my inner control freak would’ve been freaking out at that situation, and that reaction might’ve looked something like this: Wait, what? She’s having a drink with a friend? And she didn’t even tell me right away? So here I am sitting at home waiting for her and she hasn’t even left North Beach yet? Why didn’t she tell me 45 minutes ago? Is there something wrong? Is she pulling away from me?” etc. etc. etc. That’s probably a bit exaggerated, but it wouldn’t have been out of the realm of possibilities.
So what’s happened in a year? I’ve changed. Primarily, I’ve learned a lot about trust, and above all I really trust that she loves me, and that that isn’t changing. So I don’t need to have freak-out reactions, because I know intuitively that they’re baseless. And I’ve learned that by trial and error, by having freak-outs and being proven wrong because she loved me enough to be steady even in the face of my insecurity. I’ve learned that it’s better, more productive, to coax myself out of the freak-out before she even sees it, because it’s not worth bringing her down. I love her too much for that. And by learning how to do that, I realized yesterday that I’m not as much of a control freak anymore. I can let things go. But not only can I let things go — because that implies that it’s something I’m holding onto in the first place — I realized that there are some things that I’m just not even holding onto anymore. They don’t matter. Being the master of every detail in every situation doesn’t matter.
And wow, people. I can’t even tell you how happy and proud it makes me that I’m gradually becoming a better person. Don’t they say that people in a healthy relationship will bring out each other’s strengths and help make each other better people? I don’t think I ever really knew how true that could be. And it feels so fucking awesome.
So, that lesson one. It’s not “people don’t change.” It should be “you can’t force people to change for you.” Because I am living proof that people can, people do change. It just has to come from inside.
I don’t think I’d ever cried while having sex, until last night.
Granted, big changes always unsettle me. When I first moved into the place I just left last year, I felt disoriented and weepy for the first week, questioning my decision to move and convinced I would never feel at home there. Of course I got over the disorientation and weepiness after a bit (though I never did feelquite at home there, with a roommate who was lovely but who really had made it her home). I didn’t think it would happen this time, given that on the surface there didn’t seem to be anything remotely disorienting about this move: same neighbors, same building, mirror-image floor plan of the old place. And moving in with my lover, ferchrissakes. What’s disorienting about that?
Well, I’m not quite sure what’s disorienting, but I think I do feel vaguely disoriented and weepy this time around too. The move in with her feels completely natural, and in fact it doesn’t seem like much has changed in terms of our patterns except that we no longer have the stress of trying to balance quality Us Time with roommates being around. The shift into not working also seems entirely natural — I get up early, when she does, and the past few mornings I’ve been popping muffins in the oven (batter whipped up the night before) so that by the time she leaves for work, she can take some fresh out of the oven with her to work. And then I spend my days doing (for now) house stuff — massive grocery trips, unpacking, setting up internet, cleaning, organizing… But I guess there’s a period of adjustment just the same. Stuff still spilling out of boxes, things every which way in the house, closets utterly overflowing (damn San Francisco and its tiny closets!). It’s just not settled yet. And when things in my environment are unsettled, I think I’m more prone to being emotionally unsettled, too.
So maybe that’s part of why I cried last night when she was fucking me. But somehow I think there’s more to it than that.
It’s not like she was doing anything new. She was fucking me with her right hand, which I love because she can fuck so hard and so fast that way. But lately, I’ve developed a kind of mental block about being fucked this way. It started back in November, when I noticed one time after sex that I was bleeding. Then I kept noticing it — almost every time, I bleed. And despite the fact that I brushed it away, “don’t worry, I’m fine, no it doesn’t hurt, it felt really good, don’t worry!” sure that it was just some very minor tearing, it did bug me. I did go to my gynecologist, and she didn’t find anything wrong, so that was comforting as well. So I just shrugged it off. What’s a little blood here and there?
I thought I’d shrugged it off, anyway. Except for this afore-mentioned growing mental block around penetration. There’s a tiny rise of panic when she first goes in me, which she can read and so she always checks in with me. “No, no, do it, I’m fine.” But for some reason, that tactic wasn’t working last night, and as she was fucking me, my panic was stealthily rising. Panic isn’t exactly the right word. Not anxiety either, really. It’s more like this little voice of fear in the back of my head that kept getting louder, only since I was keeping the voice kept in a glass box, it was getting louder and having to pound at the walls of the box in mounting force and anxious energy because I was trying to ignore it. (How’s that for an extended analogy?) And so suddenly, I found myself crying.
My poor lady, she was so concerned, and was probably perplexed, too. I was telling her to stop and go and “it feels good” and “something doesn’t feel right” all at once. All of that was true. It did feel good, I really, really wanted her to fuck me. But at the same time, something wasn’t right, and it wasn’t anything about our connection, or about the way she was fucking me, or anything specific like that. It was so frustrating not to be able to put my finger on it. So instead I cried.
It’s funny. I’ve often wondered about triggers, since I’ve rarely been “triggered” while having sex. I’ve heard that many women who’ve been raped have a lot of trouble with sex and have a lot of trouble with physically-triggered flashbacks. I’ve only had that once, I think. I’m not sure why, but I think it has something to do with the fact that my memories of being raped are dissociated. I don’t have physically-triggered flashbacks because my mind separated from my body completely. But I wonder whether what’s coming up for me now, what came up for me last night, is some kind of trigger. I was dissociated from my body during the actual trauma, but came slamming back into it right after and for the aftermath — immediate and long-term — I was definitely experiencing my body. I have very acute physical memories from that time. But even those are rarely triggered, and even when they are, it’s not always easy to identify what it is that’s going on. I’m not even sure whether it’s worth trying.
Last night, though. I think that was a trigger. I think the slow build-up of anxiety over the past few months about this bleeding thing, I think that’s a trigger. It’s a trigger of physical damage, lasting physical pain, blood, and above all not knowing — not knowing and trying to repress, make it go away, ignore it, not let anyone know.
Jesus. I don’t know. I guess talking about it is a good thing. I’m not sure what to do about it though. Therapy, yeah, I know, right. I’ve cut therapy out, though, for now, for budgetary reasons since leaving my job with cushy health insurance. I just wish I knew how to help soothe that panicky, isolated voice in my brain that thinks it’s invisible and inaudible and that’s afraid of — what, pain? I guess — I hope — noticing it is the first step. Hearing it, voicing it, hugging it, letting it know I hear it. Does it sound like I’m schizophrenic? I think I feel kind of schizophrenic about this. Is that what dissociating does? It’s confusing. I don’t want that flattened 15-year-old creeping back. No.
Or, maybe I do. Maybe it’s the right time to go back and visit her and tell her everything is going to be okay.
Fuck this is ridiculous. I cried during sex last night, and look what I’ve made out of it! Anyway, here’s the moral of the story: I’m working on sorting shit out. And luckily, I have the most amazing lady to support me in all of it. After the tears last night, and after a little bit of trying to articulate what was going on, she asked me if I wanted to stop.
“No,” I said. “I want you to fuck me.” And so I patted that anxious voice on the head, and listened instead to how good it feels when she’s filling me up. Mmmmm.
Me: Just looked at the Target receipts. Turns out the toilet paper we got really was unambiguously the best deal cuz it was an additional $3 off so was only $14 after all!
We were in our sleep position (big spoon: her, little spoon: me), starting to drift off. And then this little gem of an exchange took place, inspired by our previous conversation about how she really wants me to go to the doctor again about all the unexplained bruising I’ve been having:
Her (sleepily): It’s really scary to put all my eggs in one basket… you know?
Me: Yeah, I know. It is scary.
Her (as she squeezes me tighter): But I really like this basket.
Me: I like the basket MY eggs are in.
Her: But what if the basket falls?
Me: I know, then all the eggs will break!
Her: That would be so sad!
So, here’s to hoping both of our “baskets” will remain healthy and strong for a long, long time.
Well, that post on sexual violence was supposed to be Part I of IV, and I was going to do all four this month, in April, partly because it’s Sexual Assault Awareness Month but mostly because I thought it would be easier for me to write it all at once and altogether and then get right back to my regularly scheduled ruminations about my life and my relationship. I also sort of felt insecure about it, like maybe people wouldn’t want to read something so serious and harsh on my blog, so it’d be better for everyone if I just hurried up and got it all out of the way. Except that something happened that I wasn’t planning on, and what happened was I sort of ran away. I hit publish, and then turned off the internet for a week and a half. I mean, I was reading other people’s blogs and doing other stuff on the internet. But I didn’t look at any comments and didn’t check my email or post on twitter or poke my head above ground at all. But the weirdest part is I didn’t even realize I was doing that until a week later.
I guess it just needed time to sit there and have its own life for a minute before I came back to it. And it’s fine, I’m totally fine, I’m glad I wrote it and glad I shared it, and thank you all so so so much for your comments. You can’t possibly know how much they mean to me. In a funny sort of way, my healing in the past few years has been much aided by all the love and support I get now from people in my life; it’s like I can remember that time of my life but also picture the warm and loving spirits of people now saturating the air around the 15-year-old me who had no idea they were there at the time because she was hurting too much to see them, but knowing they were there all along somehow helps me now in a way that doesn’t feel entirely retroactive. It actually is almost as if I’m beginning to learn how to re-remember, re-live that time a little less lost. Memory is a funny thing.
Anyway, to get back to the original point of this post, I don’t think I’m going to be writing parts II, III, and IV quite yet. It will happen, but not this month, and for the time being I’ve got plenty of other things to write about.
Beginning with:
We have a new home! I tweeted a few weeks ago about how disappointed I was that the perfect little garden home we wanted went to another applicant — and Jen told me that it must’ve happened for a reason — and was she ever right! Back story: I currently live in a sexplex (you know, a house divided into six units, duh, minds out of the gutter people!), two flats per floor, and the flats on each floor are flip-flops of each other. The landlord’s son and daughter-in-law have lived in the flip-flop flat to mine for the past few years, and they mentioned at the beginning of April that they might be moving somewhere bigger soon. My roommate and I got excited for a hot minute about the possibility of me and the lady love taking over their flat, but then we never heard another whisper of them moving and figured it wouldn’t be happening for a while, and promptly forgot about it.
Until last week, when suddenly, one day, they were gone. The very next morning I called our landlord, and said (more or less), “hey, you know, my girlfriend and I would be totally happy to move into that flat for you, if you could keep the rent where it’s currently at. It would be so easy for you, you wouldn’t have to renovate it or show it or anything, and you know me already, and I’m already a part of the building family, and, you know, we’re awesome tenants, so how’s about it?” And WHADDOYAKNOW? He fell for it! Well, almost: he did bump the rent up a bit, but it’s still well below market rate for our neighborhood, and it’s got TWO BEDROOMS. So much space! A guest room! A music room! A library! An office! A ballroom! So many possibilities! It’s a mansion you guys, and for so cheap. No, it doesn’t have a garden, but it has a sunny little back deck of sorts, and I’m going to see about having a little herb garden back there. And moving is going to be CAKE. I just have to drag everything next door. Like, three feet.
We’re so excited. May 15th will be the first day of our lease, so that I can move everything before I travel for two weeks starting May 18th. I think I’m going to die of asphyxiation from holding my breath until then, I’m so excited. Our OWN PLACE! :)
I’ve written about enough for now, so I’ll just leave you with a little souvenir of a fun photo shoot I did yesterday. The lady love, who isn’t even a photographer, snapped about 100 shots of me in my bedroom, and they came out so lovely! The lighting is just the gorgeous sunlight filtered through my translucent insulating blinds.
Amidst all my excitement about this summer and all the potential it carries, I have one nagging worry. I’m worried that my copious amounts of free time, most of which will probably be spent by myself, will put a strain on my relationship, that when she’s home I’ll be wanting to hang out while she may often have other things to do. Maybe this isn’t so much a worry as it is something to look out for and be mindful of this summer.
As it is right now, I do sometimes feel as though we don’t have enough together time. I work a lot of hours, take burlesque classes, volunteer on the crisis hotline, have family obligations once in a while and statistics homework to do, and have various appointments that sometimes inevitably take up evenings and weekends. She, meanwhile, has band practice generally one evening every week and one full day into the night every weekend, plus the occasional late evening at work or evening/weekend appointment. All this PLUS spending time with friends at least weekly means that … we really don’t have that much plain old hangout time. We spend a lot of time together, but it’s often just in that hour before bed when we pop in the latest disc from our Netflix queues, watch for a bit, and then have a quickie before going to sleep. It’s been even tougher lately with her new work schedule, which has her (and thus, often, me) getting up at 6:15am, rather than 7:35 as it used to be — a change which necessitates an earlier bedtime, obviously. But since my work schedule hasn’t changed (yet! ha!), and I’m still getting out of work at 6 or 6:30 on a good day, our evenings have been shortened.
And, to me, it doesn’t feel like enough. To me, it feels like our sex has stopped progressing — we do the tried and true, rather than the new and unknown. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, I realize — hell, we’re still having sex at least 3 times a week, usually 4-5, and it can’t always be new and unknown (nor would I want it to be! familiar is often exactly what I most desire). But it’s at a point now where I do feel like we don’t have the time to spend with each other working on our relationship. The time we spend together gets filled up with having our relationship — watching movies, fucking, cuddling, cooking/eating, giving each other footrubs, talking about our schedules, decompressing after our respective days, sleeping — because those are usually the most pressing wants. We want to relax after work, we really want to hear about each other’s days and all the things going on that are bothering us or exciting us. We want to zone out and watch movies and curl up together just feeling each other’s bodies. And we want to have sex, to connect physically, erotically.
But I think a lot of that stuff is very short-term gratification. It’s what we think we want to do right NOW because NOW I’m tired and want to relax and chat about regular stuff. It’s comfortable, and cozy. But to me, always indulging that immediate sense of relationship laziness starts to take a toll. Sexually, I start to feel like many of my more elaborate or scarier desires are slipping into the realm of “fantasy,” rather than the realm of “to do this weekend.” Other than sexually, I start to feel like the more we do the same things with our time together, the less able we are to do other things. So maybe this is about spontaneity — making sure we keep infusing the Regular with the New and Exciting. And this spontaneity has to be something that we work on together.
I’m not sure how to start bringing more of an Our Relationship Is a Project that We Work on Together mentality into our routine, especially because (1) we’re both so busy doing our own personal projects that we really love and that really fulfill us, and (2) I think the Project Relationship mentality is more of something I want than something she wants. She, I think, is perfectly happy to just go along the way we’ve been going along. She likes comfort and routine, and doesn’t like feeling like she has to work on yet another thing in her life. I, on the other hand, really like to have relationship check-ins, and to discuss what’s working and what isn’t, figure out how to fix what isn’t and congratulate each other for what is, and to set little goals, and to be intentional about things that we do. In fact I start to feel anxious and unsettled if we don’t do those things. And I know that because that’s not a high priority for her there will always be some give and take on that front. But it’s starting to feel more pressing for me lately.
To bring that back around to my worry about this summer, the worry I have, I guess, is mostly that I’ll have a whole lot more time to devote myself to our Relationship Project than she will (I mean, I’m hoping to write here every day, and oftentimes, even this is, in a way, part of our Relationship Project), and that that will start to build up in me as this tension that isn’t getting resolved because there just isn’t time.
(What’s a good balance, anyway? How can you find the spot between co-dependent and over-committed to other things? Is it better to spend a lot of time on our own things so that we’re whole complete individuals without needing the other to complete us? Or is it better to spend a lot of time on each other, so that we feel unity and affinity? So that these anxieties don’t surface? Clearly I think a balance is necessary, but what is that balance? And at what point do we have to start sacrificing one thing or the other in order to strike it?)
So, I think it’s good that I’ve identified this issue as something that might come up for me this summer. I still have enough time to work on coming up with ways to avoid that surfacing, and strategies for combatting it if it does. Like if I set goals for myself every day, enough to keep my on my toes and sufficiently busy, then that should help. Spending time actively out and about with other people will help, too. And I think I’d like to bring up with her the idea of committing to eat dinner together whenever possible, shutting off all our other projects at least an hour before we go to bed whenever possible, and identifying and scheduling Together time as separate from time we’re together but working on separate things, so that we can make sure we’re staying attentive to each other and our relationship. And I just need to remember, too, that it’s much more of a relationship Want, for me, to be intentionally thinking about this stuff than it is for her, and that that doesn’t mean she doesn’t care about the relationship as much as I do.
Last night, we climbed into bed much later than we’d planned, both tired and already bracing ourselves against the Monday morning alarm clock. We settled into what we call our Sleep Position: big spoon (her) and little spoon (me), her arm wrapped around me. It’s become so much of a habit that I hardly think of it anymore. But last night, after a few moments, she pipes up: “Do you like sleeping like this?” “Yes, baby, I do.” “Why?” “It makes me feel safe, and snug, and warm.” “Okay. Just checking.”
I am very happy. Having been sitting with my decision to stay here and go to CIIS for a few days now, I can honestly say that I’m just plain happy about it. And that’s how I know it’s the right thing. I read the blog Zen Habits, which, for those unfamiliar with it, is a lifestyle blog of sorts — for living life simply and productively. I take some of it and leave some of it (barefoot walking? no thank you, plus, I have massive foot problems and need arch support), but one post this past week was particularly apt for me: The Secret to Making Life Decisions. It went up after I made my decision, or else I might think it’d influenced me. Instead, I get the nice feeling of knowing I made my decision all by myself, without any help, plus this sense of validation afterwards:
We’ve been brought up in a very left-brain-directed world, where the traditional decision-making strategy is a very logical process that involves listing each option, listing the pros and cons of each option, and then weighing up your lists in order to make your decision. This can be useful in very stable, predictable environments where we have all the information we need and in some business environments where we’re solving simple problems, but it isn’t the most effective way to make your most important life decisions . . . . In an information-rich world where we have abundant options, when it comes to making important life decisions, we need to be able to synthesize lots of information, see the big picture, spot themes and relationships, intuitively sense what information is most important to us, and invent possibilities that don’t even exist yet. These are all right-brain-directed thinking skills that we can employ through our emotional navigation system.
Most people treat their emotions as though they’re purely incidental and sometimes even a hindrance in life. Emotions are often side-lined as impulsive and troublesome parts of ourselves that have to be controlled and are of little value to us. Actually, our emotions, both negative and positive, are all perfectly safe and healthy and serve us in incredible ways, especially when it comes to making important life decisions. Every emotion you experience is a clear signal to help you differentiate between the expectations and demands being placed on you and what’s truly important to your Essential Self.
As a chronic list-maker, I always tend to stay emotionally uninvolved with my decisions. Emotions are too messy, too disorganized. I like things to be organized! Straightforward! Clear! Who needs more confusion, you know? Let’s just be practical! But I had to follow my heart on this one, because no matter how many lists I made I wasn’t finding the answer. The answer wasn’t in line-by-line comparisons of program statistics or in budget spreadsheets analyzing the costs and benefits of each option. I really had to dig around and go with my gut feelings. And that wasn’t easy either, because, as I kept saying, “I have two guts! And they’re saying different things!” But I had to go with the one that was kicking me harder.
When I came home today, there was a beautiful vase of tulips on my kitchen table and a sweet note from my roommate, saying “Congratulations on your choice EVG! I’m glad we’ll get to keep you!” [My roommate, see, has airport codes for everybody in her life, and they come from a funny mix of our names, initials, random facts/qualities about us, and what sounds good. Apparently "Ee-Vee-Gee" has a nice ring to it? Her lover du jour, for example, is called "IPM": International Playboy of Mystery. Lol.]
Speaking of my roommate, though, I don’t think I’ll be staying here much longer. The lady and I have decided that June 1st will be our day. This afternoon, we went and looked at a place not too far from where we both currently live (we’re not really looking at places yet, but this one just sounded so lovely that we had to go see). It’s gorgeous and affordable. Hardwood floors, giant windows, lots of closet space, perfect location, and a HUGE backyard with a garden and a patio all belonging just to the one flat. Amazing. We’re going to apply and see if a May 15 moving date would be too late for them. We’ll see.
And suddenly, after typing that out, I feel all jittery again, just like that. Like, wait, what? We’re moving in together? Ahhhhhhh, wait, no, what?! Can’t do it! Stop! Scary! What if we hate each other? Where will we go when we need space! What if we lose all our friends! Is this really the right thing to do? Quick! Let’s make some lists! Let’s do a cost-benefit analysis! GET ME A SPREADSHEET, STAT.
*
I guess I’ll just have to go with my heart on this one, too.
After a lovely day together (brunch, farmers’ market, working quietly together on separate things, fucking, cooking*, listening to apodcast on Anna Karenina which we just read together, and general fun), Lady Love went out tonight to a friend’s birthday, leaving me at home to ostensibly bake brownies and do my statistics homework. First goal accomplished. Second goal … I’m working on it.
[*For those interested, I made a swiss chard gratin and an asparagus and green pea ragout from Alice Waters' cookbook The Art of Simple Food, which is one of my absolute favorite cookbooks ever and which I highly highly recommend. A pleasure to read, pretty to look at, and, living up to its title, simple.]
But I got distracted, and this is why:
Fifteen minutes before she left, I mixed us each a cosmopolitan (“I can’t arrive sober!”), she put on Madonna (Like a Virgin), and we danced along giddily in the middle of my living room until she had to rush off to catch her bus. My flat felt empty after she left. This always happens, when we’ve been together and really having fun, and then we separate — there’s a sort of transition period of listlessness for me. Once I adjust, I’m perfectly happy to go do my thing, whatever it is, but for 10-15 minutes I often, well, miss her. Silly as it sounds.
So there I was, sitting with two empty martini glasses (cosmopolitan glasses are on my wishlist; until then, I’ll have to masquerade my cosmos as martinis), figuring out what I was going to do with myself, when I got a text message:
LL: “are you still listening to madonna and being cute”
Me: “yep :)”
LL: “I miss you”
Me: “I miss you too. We’re so silly.”
LL: “no we’re not silly. we’re just a little team.”
And it’s true. We are a team. We were talking earlier today about how, aside from just loving each other, we also really support each other. We have managed to strike a good balance of each doing our own thing and doing things with and for each other. And it just seems so easy right now. We listen to and hear each other, and do our best to clear up misunderstandings with an open mind and a willingness to forgive. We let go of most of the little irritations and instead bring things up for dialogue when they seem more important. We have fun together. We have fun fucking together. We continue to be open to learning from each other. We tell each other more than daily that we love each other, and frequently say things like “you’re beautiful,” and “I love when you look at me like that,” and “your ass is fuckin’ hot.” And we support and encourage each other to do the things we love to do and the things that make us tick. Her: music. Me: cooking. Her: socializing. Me: writing. Et cetera. We’ve finally found a stride that works for both of us. If we were in a three-legged race (did you ever have to do those on Field Day in elementary school? just me?) we wouldn’t so much as stumble; we’d beat every mofo on the fuckin’ field!
Which isn’t to say we haven’t had our rough spots. Oh we have. We’ve had our nasty blow-out go-to-bed-feeling-hollow-wake-up-feeling-ill meltdowns. Not many of them in our year and four months of being together (two? three?), but when they come they’re not pretty. Our last one was just a few weeks ago, and it was over something small that became something big because we weren’t being responsible about communicating, and I fell asleep crying and woke up feeling ill. Except that I quickly realized I wasn’t actually feeling ill, I was just feeling stupid. And that, I realized, was progress. Each time we pass squarely to the other side of a meltdown, I feel safer. Each time we end up still together and still ridiculously in love with each other, I learn even more that the meltdowns aren’t necessary. Because this one treats me right. She does the work. She pulls her weight. And she’s willing to go back and talk about what went wrong, why, how, and what we can do to manage it better next time. And my love and trust for her pulses through my body and Ifeel so fucking lucky to have her.
We have our differences. I’m particular, she’s easy-going. I’m tidy, she’s messy. I’m somewhat guarded, she’s much more outgoing. But we’re a team, and I’m steadily learning what that means. “She is the wind beneath my wings,” the saying goes, and though I’ve always scoffed at it, I think I’m beginning to understand.
So, we’re talking about moving in together in a few months. We’ve been talking about it in vague terms for the past several months already: “maybe next summer, if we’re still together, we’ll want to live together, and then I’d NEVER have to be mad about dishes piling up in the sink because you’re good at doing dishes!” and “if we’re living together, we’ll be paying less rent, so maybe I can afford to leave my job a few months early.” That sort of thing. And neither of us had really dared to bring it up in a serious way, until this past week, because, well, it’s kind of big and scary. And also vaguely far away. Someday. (Doesn’t summer always seem far away in the middle of winter?)
But the truth is, it’s not all that far away. I’ll know about grad school within a month, and I will probably leave my job by two months later, and will be starting graduate school (hopefully) within three months after that. And my calendar is filling up already for things happening in May, June. And it was when I realized that I’ll be in New York and Massachusetts for 2-3 weeks at the end of May/beginning of June for my college reunion and some family and friend visiting that I realized, um, yikes, maybe we’d better actually have that serious conversation about moving in together. Because I’m not going to be around for a large chunk of May, rendering a June move-in difficult, and she’ll be gone for part of July, and then we’re both travelling to her sister’s wedding in August, and then my classes start… which leaves May 1 and July 1 as our options, really, and for several reasons I won’t bore you with here, May 1 seems a better fit for me.
And, well, May 1 is kind of soon. Not omg-we-need-to-start-apartment-hunting soon. But soon. Omg-we-need-to-really-consider-what-we’re-getting-ourselves-into-and-are-we-ready-to-take-this-step-and-what-does-this-mean soon. I think we’re both simultaneously really fucking excited and really fucking scared. I feel a bit like how I feel about maybe leaving my job if I don’t get into grad school (and thus face immense uncertainty). It feels so right, and thinking about it makes me so happy and so excited, and when I really think about it I want to do it, like, tomorrow, but then I freeze up, like, but what if it doesn’t work?Things are fine the way they are, aren’t they? You’re not unhappy or anything, why tempt fate? It could be disastrous, what if you’re really not as ready as you think you are…
I don’t know, you know? I worry about some of my tendencies, and wonder whether really I need more time to work them out living separately before I’m surrounded by her and us all the time. I worry about my control-freak micro-managing ways; I worry about her messiness. I worry that those two things are a horrible combination, and wonder if the reason they work alright now is that we each have our own space and so I can be the boss of mine and she can be the boss of hers. I worry about my tendency towards co-dependency, and if I don’t have a space to call my own, will I lose track of my self? Will we be able to make space for our selves and for each other? I worry about being able to strike a comfortable balance of shared responsibility for our space, given my high attention to detail in household matters and her relative leniency. And, I don’t know, what if we lose the spark? What if we get boring, stop being interesting to each other? I’m afraid of taking each other and our time together for granted. I want it all to still be special.
And as I was writing all that there was the other little voice in my head saying “but! but! but!”, countering everything there with other (happier) thoughts. Like that if we can deal well with our current situation (and we do), then of course we’ll be able to handle living together, and in fact much of what’s hard now might (even probably will) be easier. Right now, though we each have our own individual space, we don’t have our own couple space. We can’t just come home from work and cook dinner and chill, read together, watch a movie while cuddling, then get distracted and start hooking up in the middle. We can’t do that because there are always roommates around. So in a way, our sexuality is quashed. Then, also, living out of two separate apartments is a drag, to say the least. I always have to be thinking a day or two ahead when I know I’ll be over there, and even though I generally have clothes over there, there are still shoes and makeup and computer and whatever my plans are the day after (burlesque? dinner with friends? show?) to be thinking of. And toting around. Cooking is harder to plan ahead for, and is more expensive, because we’re dealing with two pantries and two refrigerators.
Mostly, and maybe this is boring,but I don’t care if it is, mostly I just want to be able to spend time together not doing anything. I want to be able to come home late after an evening of being busy and have her there, working on her music, and I want to kiss her hello, throw some leftovers on the stove, and plop down on the sofa with a good book or some writing ideas and each do our own shit together, and then eventually get distracted by each other’s presence and fuck on the living room floor before crashing into bed and briefly sharing the highlights (or lowlights) of our days with each other as we drift off into snuggly slumber.
That’s what I want. I guess I’d like to take the leap of faith; we’ve done well so far with circumstances that aren’t always easy. Living together certainly won’t be easy either, I’m sure of it. We’re two people. There will always be conflict. It will be different conflict from what we have now, to be sure, but won’t that also be fun? Figuring out how to navigate a whole new set of situations? An adventure. In love.
Scary as fuck. But honestly, I think the thing I’m scared of most is that I’m less scared than she is. I want her to want this and believe in this as much as I do. What if she doesn’t? What would that mean?
I guess it’s probably time to have that conversation, yeah?
As I mentioned a few posts ago, I really love Valentine’s Day. I love it when I’m in a couple, I love it when I’m single. I’m not one of those people who gets bitter and resentful if I’m single for Valentine’s Day—I know that’s common, and this isn’t meant to be preachy, it’s just true: it just makes me happy to see happy people together, celebrating their love for each other. Also, when I’ve been single, I’ve always had someone else in my life who was single at the time too, generally several, and it can be really fun to celebrate the holiday with loved ones who aren’t romantic partners. Just sayin’.
BUT, this year I’m not single, so I will be celebrating the holiday with mi’lady. Last year, we had a lovely day that involved a trip to Guitar Center to buy me a digital stage piano, a 5-mile walk along the San Francisco western coastline and up to the Legion of Honor, where it was one of their free admission days PLUS there was a free organ concert in the atrium, and then an impromptu tapas dinner in the Mission followed by lots of sex. Last year, we were still just entering, cautiously, the phase of “relationship” after a few months of dating, and so neither one of us really wanted to plan anything huge and romantic.
This year’s different, obviously: we’ve been together now a year and a few months, and we’re continually growing in our love in ways that challenge me, comfort me, hold me, and strengthen me. But we had such a delightful day last year that we were reluctant to plan anything huge and romantic again this year. Not to mention we don’t have tons of cash to blow. And anyway, the point is to spend quality time together, not quality money.
So, here’s our plan:
I’ll cook brunch at my house; I’ll keep it simple: cream biscuits that I’ll make the night before, fried eggs in heart-shaped toast, veggie sausage, some sort of fruit concoction. Then, we’ll go to the Apple store to get her new computer (keeping in the tradition of making big purchases on Valentine’s Day… but not on each other!), maybe walk around a bit downtown or in our neighborhood, I’m thinking maybe go to Buena Vista park or something, get our blood pumping. Then come home and fuck the afternoon away (it’s so much better before dinner than after! when you have an appetite in more ways than one, the sex is better–livelier, hungrier (literally), and you’re not in that stupor you’re in when you’re full) before an 8:15 dinner reservation at Blue Plate on Valencia. And finally, we’ll come home, put on Gilda (what’s better than Rita Hayworth on Valentine’s Day? or any day?), and sip wine with chocolate and strawberries. And then snuggle into bed and fall asleep, of course.
, which is one of my absolute favorite cookbooks ever and which I highly highly recommend. A pleasure to read, pretty to look at, and, living up to its title, simple.]
are on my wishlist; until then, I’ll have to masquerade my cosmos as martinis), figuring out what I was going to do with myself, when I got a text message:
