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 I feel 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.