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Cool Mint Listerine oral care strips are my new favorite discovery. Using one is like brushing your teeth, but without the need for the sink or the toothbrush. They fascinate me. If you haven�t seen one, it�s like a little rectangle of fresh breath, almost like a picture negative. You put one on your tongue and it dissolves almost instantaneously, leaving you with that just-finished-brushing feeling. I�m addicted!
Anyway�
Last night, Chris and I went to the Dogwood for dinner. We haven�t seen much of each other lately, and I feel bad that he�s had so much alone time in the apartment. I know he isn�t my �responsibility,� but he is my friend, and as such, I feel neglectful. He was especially quiet, though. I saw an ad on TV this morning promoting National Depression Screening Day. I wish we could convince him to get some help.
So�back to dinner. As we were finishing our meals, a group sat down at the table next to us, a couple around our age with her mom and both his parents. When their drinks came, the guy half of the couple raised his glass and called for a toast. �To time together as a family,� he said. His wife added, �And to new grandparents!�
There was silence for a minute, broken by the sound of his mom�s tearful, �you mean�you�re�you�re�pregnant?!� The next few minutes were filled with much smiling and hugging and crying and exchange of just-finished ultrasound photos. She was six weeks along.
I couldn�t help watching them. Something inside me was thinking I want that.
How very 90210 of me. Yeah, you Mediaramans know what I mean.
Once we got home, I went into full-on room cleaning mode. Something about the colder weather makes me want to throw things away. Or maybe it�s that monthly hormone shift. I don�t know. But I�m feeling like I should take a page from Cindy�s book and start keeping track of what I throw out each day. Maybe that will keep me going. I need to scale down possession-wise before I make the move to the Condo. Between the Boyfriend and myself, we have enough stuff to fill three condos, and that�s BEFORE the wedding! I know, though, that a lot of what�s in my apartment I don�t really need to take with me. I�m a hoarder, and seven years in the same place has only encouraged that.
The Boyfriend and I had a bit of a disagreement on Sunday night revolving around living space. Well, more so around the fact that we don�t share living space. Coming home from NH, he was headed toward the Condo. I pointed out that I didn�t have work clothes or my hospital badge or my allergy medication with me. He insisted that I could find something to wear to work in his closet, could get through one day without my badge and only take my medication sporadically as needed.
He was driving. We went to the Condo.
Yesterday morning, he told me I was grumpy. This was a bad move.
Sometimes, my brain feeds directly to my mouth with no censorious stop in the middle. This was one of those times.
�Perhaps that�s because I didn�t plan to be here this morning, and as such I don�t have the things with me that I usually need to start my day. Perhaps that�s because it�s freezing outside and I�m inappropriately dressed for the weather and I have no hair dryer here and am about to go out into a wind chill that�s making the temps feel like their in the 20�s with wet hair. Perhaps it�s because my head is all stuffy and I can�t do anything about it because my Allegra is in MY kitchen!�
I continued on to explain to him that as much as he may think of this as a �done deal,� we are still living in two separate places for the next ten months, and he can�t just pretend that I live with him, because ALL MY STUFF IS STILL IN MY APARTMENT!
We were both very quiet on the way to the T station.
This living sort-of in limbo is hard. I don�t want to duplicate all of my belongings in his place so that I can start my days in either bathroom with equal ease, but I don�t want every trip home to end in disagreement, either. There has to be a solid middle ground.
The easy answer would be to just give in, sublet the apartment and move into the Condo. But I�m just not ready to do that yet, for a lot of different reasons. I don�t feel right personally about living with him before the wedding. And there�s the promise that I made to my grandmother looming in my head, which I wouldn�t break.
But it�s more than that, too. Next August, my life is going to change in a huge way. The ten months between now and then are the last section of a huge part of my life, one that I�ve for the most part enjoyed. I want my last Christmas party in the apartment. I want my Buffy Tuesdays to start with dinner at the Dogwood. I want to be able to cross the street and walk through the Arboretum in the spring when the lilacs are out without having to make a big plan for it. I want the last period of freedom that living in the city allows me.
And it�s not that marrying the Boyfriend will take away my freedom, exactly, and it�s not that I don�t want those changes to happen. I look forward to them-to having my time intrinsically linked to his time, and to sharing and building our lives together.
But this year, this is still for me. And maybe that�s selfish, for me to want to enjoy that and take full advantage of it. Then I�m being selfish, and so be it.
But better that I feel that way now, don�t you think? It�s part of the change the wedding will bring. And like I�ve said all along, I think it�s important for me to save something.
Reminds me of a song by Depeche Mode�a song I frequently said would be my wedding song, although now that I�m in the market for a wedding song, I�m not so sure. But there�s a line in it that says, �I don�t want to be tied to anyone�s strings�I�m carefully trying to steer clear of those things. But when I�m asleep, I want somebody who will put their arms around me and kiss me tenderly��
I guess the transition from �me� to �us� is going to be a long one for me. But hey, the rewards are great.
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