September Surrender: Day Twenty Nine
I’ve never lived with a boyfriend before. There was never any opportunity. And now, I’m fast approaching that. I know my boyfriend and I will eventually move in together, even going so far as buying a house upstate someday. Just gotta get these mortgage rates down. I ain’t getting locked into a 6-percent rate right now. Still, we send each other listings all the time. I’m glad we’re both on the same page and have the same kind of aspirations on our future home. But the maximum time we’ve cohabitated since we started dating has been five days. What am I going to do when the house I go home to has someone else there within it?
After a while, I need my space. I need my only child time. And I get cagey when I don’t have it. I worry about getting annoyed with all the little habits one has, or the things you only see when you live with someone. I won’t have flaws, of course. I’m only allowed to get annoyed by everyone, not the other way around.
This has been a pattern for me for a long time. I used to go to sports camps for a week at time over summers. One I really liked was UPenn’s fencing camp. A lot of kids I’d fence with all went, and out of all the schools I stayed at, Penn had the nicest dorms for us to stay in. One year, I was going for the full two weeks and would be rooming with one of my fencing club buddies. My mom warned me to just watch myself, as it was very easy for me to get annoyed with someone I had to spend all this time with. But come on, this girl was my friend, how could anything go wrong? Turns out, as we clicked into the second week of camp, I just couldn’t stand her anymore. It wasn’t anything she particularly did, I just wanted a second away from her, and wasn’t finding the adequate time to do so. It’s like everywhere I went she had to be there, and she brought all these habits along with her that were simply grating on me. So I got a little rude and cold about it, just sulking and closing myself off until we could finally go home.
We were still friends after but I never let myself forget how easy it was for me to become irritated by someone who never even did anything worth my ire. I just want my space and I don’t want everyone in it.
My boyfriend and I see each other every week and I’ve not yet gotten tired of him. I want to see him all the time and I’m sure the feeling is mutual. But I do know how different it is when you’re actually living in the same space. Luckily for us we’ve already spoken about our individual needs for the house: I get an office, he gets an art studio. Plus we need enough space for him to put in a greenhouse on the lawn. I think this time around, whatever caginess there is in me can take a backseat. I’m not just doing this in a temporary basis, I’m here to build a life with this person. Any annoyance can be worked out or taken to another room. As long as I remember he might need the same kind of break from me too. No one is perfect, even when your living situation becomes an ideal one for the both of you.