Before we moved in together, a small part of me was worried that it would be difficult to live with someone I love. I thought that perhaps we wouldn’t have enough space, that I wouldn’t have enough privacy to write, or that you wouldn’t have privacy to do whatever it is you do when I’m not with you. But living with you presents an entirely different set of challenges than simply not having enough time alone.
To be in love with you is to practice altruism. Being in love with you means cleaning clumps of our hair out of the bottom of the shower with my bare hands. It’s wanting to talk to you when you’re in the other room but remaining silent, waiting for that time when we’re both free. It’s going to bed a little earlier on occasion because I want to hear your softening of movements as you fall asleep: nervy twitching giving way to gentle adjustments and finally, those of subtle sleep.
I'm convinced that sleeping together every night has us in identical patterns. In the early morning hours, we’re either both awake or both asleep. I can sense it, when I foggily adjust and hear you do the same. I’m also sure that, try as we might, neither of us has succeeded in sneaking off to the bathroom and finding the other asleep upon return.
Of course, there have been some hurdles. You are so busy with school that some days it feels like I’m living alone. And sometimes I get frustrated when I can’t spend as much time with you as perhaps we’d both like.
But I do know that after a long day of you working hard at school and me working hard at staying busy, and I hear footsteps in the hallway outside our apartment, they’re always yours in my mind. And I get so excited–did you know I still get excited when you come home?–when the feet outside that door are, in fact, yours, and I hear the key turn and the door swing open, the only thing in the world that I want is to see your face, to read it and gauge whether you had a good day.
I’ve been writing a lot lately, writing something that may rhyme with a nook, and it scares the hell out of me–so much that on this blog I can’t even spell out what it is I’m writing, I have to pathetically use the word ‘nook’ to get to it. And a few days ago, I read some of it to you, and that just scared more hells out of me and made me realize I can’t do it, I can’t read it to you in its current unfinished form. I’m too obsessive, and I saw too many things that I wanted to change, so if I did read it to you each day, I’d spend so much time editing that I’d never finish.
And the look on your face told me everything I need to know about how much you love me. You hated it, hated that I told you I couldn’t read it to you and hated my explanation. You wanted me to let you in to that most personal of spaces so much that you couldn’t keep the hurt from your face. And as much as I want to share it with you, and as much as I can’t wait to do so once the first draft is done, seeing that hurt in your face made me love you all the more, because it showed just how much you care. Telling me that you love me is one thing, but I get the truest sense of it from your face more than your words.
And I hope you see it in mine as often as I do in yours. Because I love you to the moon and back. Words cannot define love (see last blog), but I love trying to define ours. I love the little notes you leave me, like the one on my first day of work. I loved writing the one that I put under your toothbrush, but I love even more that it’s still there, after all these days. I love thinking about the way you smile at me because when it’s real and genuine and when I put it there, there’s nothing else in the world I’d rather see.
And still, I feel this love is young. We are like two pumas gazing out at our unexplored world. We still have so much to figure out, and I love that we’re going to do these things together (like surviving a weeks-long hike along a backcountry trail, being with each other at Christmas, and telling your parents we’re living together.)
Although solitude is my oldest companion, with you I’m closer to solitude than with any other person. It’s only been about a year, and I feel you know me. Like my favorite line from that poem, “I think I understand the patterns of my nature,” I think you understand the patterns of my nature, and rather than this understanding of yours leading you to ditch me, it’s seemed to have deepened your love for me, which I'm rather grateful for.
And it's a beautiful feeling. The best and most beautiful.