There
comes a moment where two people decide to share a space. Ive written
before about not yet coming into that moment but when my past roommate
left to move in with her boyfriend she explained it better than I ever
could. She reasoned that "not being together became far more
inconvenient than being together in separate spaces." Or something like
that. Traveling back and forth was tiring, lugging your things,
forgetting certain things, mistakenly trying to pay for coffee by
flipping extra underwear on the counter (true story) got old. While I
completely believed her, I still didn't think that moment would happen
to me. Especially because of the two week trial.
Between leases my then boyfriend moved in for two weeks. At the end of the two weeks I remember being alarmingly relieved. It was shitty of me but I realized that while I really liked him, I didn't really like him there all the time. We would knock into each other, step on each other, glance over like "oh you again." I had no idea that I felt this way until those two weeks were over. I kept thinking, what if we had moved into together. Signed over in blood for a 12 month lease in which, we may have ended up killing each other or worse, broke up and still had to share a space. He was clean, nice, respectful, etc. etc. but something didn't fit. It was those two puzzle pieces that totally look like they fit together but when placed together you realize the cardboard is cut a little to the right or left and then back into the pile they go. You have to keep searching.
On July 2nd while doing a weekly strip down of my apartment I smoothed out my bedding when something caught my eye. A bug. A small bug on my bed. Since then while the apartment is in my mind completely and totally unlivable I have been staying in a far, far away place known as Williamsburg, Brooklyn. A far cry from the Upper West Side and quite literally on the other side of the rainbow. In the cab ride over that night I remember thinking, this may be the two week trial and the dread that followed. I couldn't go back to my apartment if I wanted to. Everything has been flipped, cleaned, sealed and every inch poisoned. I thought sure, we spend a ton of time together but what if after 5 days straight he starts to hate me or me hate him. What if he's secretly a freak? What if he sees that I'm secretly a freak? (Meanwhile we had already discussed that we like each other because we are both freak-like in our own respectful manner.) The moment that I told him the two week trial story and he looked at me, squeezed my hand twice and said something along the lines of "well, we'll see."
It's been 15 days and I'm still at his place. My makeup is in the cabinet. Some of my dresses hang in the closet. I've purchased extra ice cube trays and set measuring cups in the kitchen. I pretend his snoring doesn't bother me because it actually doesn't. He hands me my mouth guard before I fall asleep so that I don't wake up with headaches from biting down impossibly hard in my sleep. I wake up to my alarm just like I used to, I brush my teeth and blow dry my hair. Sometimes we walk to the subway together and sometimes one of us has to leave before the other. Once he went to the grocery store for me so that I could make us dinner when I got home. He didn't even realize that it made me so happy, that gesture of picking up the ingredients. Mostly because it has been easy, simple and overwhelmingly enjoyable. He reminds me to drink more water and I remind him to brush his teeth before bed. We always say good night and good morning. The oddest things I've learned in 15 days about this person that I'm sharing a space with. The most wonderful times when he asks me to dance while the water boils before dinner. When he brings me two options of lemonade from the store because he wasn't sure which I'd prefer. (The answer is both.)
I still have my place on the Upper West Side and eventually will move on back. While I hate the fact that a bug forced this upon both of us, I am finding it very assuring that we've past the two week mark by two days and we're both still alive. We've learned a lot, like how much I hate blueberry pancakes and how he used to eat way too much pizza. So while I've been away from the blog, I've been here in his apartment in Brooklyn. I can see the city from the deck but am in no rush to escape back. After all, home is where the heart is.
Between leases my then boyfriend moved in for two weeks. At the end of the two weeks I remember being alarmingly relieved. It was shitty of me but I realized that while I really liked him, I didn't really like him there all the time. We would knock into each other, step on each other, glance over like "oh you again." I had no idea that I felt this way until those two weeks were over. I kept thinking, what if we had moved into together. Signed over in blood for a 12 month lease in which, we may have ended up killing each other or worse, broke up and still had to share a space. He was clean, nice, respectful, etc. etc. but something didn't fit. It was those two puzzle pieces that totally look like they fit together but when placed together you realize the cardboard is cut a little to the right or left and then back into the pile they go. You have to keep searching.
On July 2nd while doing a weekly strip down of my apartment I smoothed out my bedding when something caught my eye. A bug. A small bug on my bed. Since then while the apartment is in my mind completely and totally unlivable I have been staying in a far, far away place known as Williamsburg, Brooklyn. A far cry from the Upper West Side and quite literally on the other side of the rainbow. In the cab ride over that night I remember thinking, this may be the two week trial and the dread that followed. I couldn't go back to my apartment if I wanted to. Everything has been flipped, cleaned, sealed and every inch poisoned. I thought sure, we spend a ton of time together but what if after 5 days straight he starts to hate me or me hate him. What if he's secretly a freak? What if he sees that I'm secretly a freak? (Meanwhile we had already discussed that we like each other because we are both freak-like in our own respectful manner.) The moment that I told him the two week trial story and he looked at me, squeezed my hand twice and said something along the lines of "well, we'll see."
It's been 15 days and I'm still at his place. My makeup is in the cabinet. Some of my dresses hang in the closet. I've purchased extra ice cube trays and set measuring cups in the kitchen. I pretend his snoring doesn't bother me because it actually doesn't. He hands me my mouth guard before I fall asleep so that I don't wake up with headaches from biting down impossibly hard in my sleep. I wake up to my alarm just like I used to, I brush my teeth and blow dry my hair. Sometimes we walk to the subway together and sometimes one of us has to leave before the other. Once he went to the grocery store for me so that I could make us dinner when I got home. He didn't even realize that it made me so happy, that gesture of picking up the ingredients. Mostly because it has been easy, simple and overwhelmingly enjoyable. He reminds me to drink more water and I remind him to brush his teeth before bed. We always say good night and good morning. The oddest things I've learned in 15 days about this person that I'm sharing a space with. The most wonderful times when he asks me to dance while the water boils before dinner. When he brings me two options of lemonade from the store because he wasn't sure which I'd prefer. (The answer is both.)
I still have my place on the Upper West Side and eventually will move on back. While I hate the fact that a bug forced this upon both of us, I am finding it very assuring that we've past the two week mark by two days and we're both still alive. We've learned a lot, like how much I hate blueberry pancakes and how he used to eat way too much pizza. So while I've been away from the blog, I've been here in his apartment in Brooklyn. I can see the city from the deck but am in no rush to escape back. After all, home is where the heart is.
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