Last week, Matt and I
were driving home from the store in my new city of Ann Arbor, Michigan. The
backseat was full of all the new things we needed for our apartment, well, his
apartment that had now— with the recent addition of all my clothing, kitchen
items, and cat—become ours. We’d bought a carload of groceries, various grooming
products, cat food and litter, and a brand new toaster oven. I was already
feeling a little weepy about the toaster oven, not just because it was the
first ever toaster oven I’d owned and toaster ovens are incredibly useful (did
you know, according to the owner’s manual, you can bake a whole personal pizza
in there?) but because it was our
toaster oven. The first appliance we’ve ever bought together.
In the five years that
we have dated, Matt and I have shared a lot of things, but we’ve always been
careful to keep what was ours separate. The tabby cat is his, the calico cat is
mine. His blue 2003 Volkswagon Passat, my black 2003 Volkswagon Passat. (This
is purely a coincidence. We had identical cars before we met, but yes, it’s okay
if you want to vomit a little.) Even when we lived together two years ago, we had
two of everything like Karen from the Babysitter’s Club Little Sister books who
owned duplicate items for each house of her divorced parents: two dressers, two
woks, two separate bottles of laundry detergent (Mine was normal, his he made
in the lab). But as we drove home I looked back at the big cardboard box that contained
our new jointly owned toaster oven and couldn’t help but fall in love a little
with the appliance all taped up in its blue box. I couldn’t wait to get it
home, set it up, and make ourselves some symbolic toast. It was then that Judge
Judy came on the radio and said these words: “Newly cohabitating couples should
never, ever buy anything together.” Judy snapped me out of my toaster oven
delirium. I’d been so happy thinking of all the things we were going to make in
that toaster oven (Seriously, you can just put a raw chicken breast in there),
but this seemed like a sign that couldn’t be ignored. After so many years of
careful separation, were we making the wrong choice? Should I hand Matt over
the 13 dollars for my half of the toaster oven? But then I thought about all
the other typical “mistakes” Matt and I have made in the last few years. We’ve
basically done every single thing they tell you not to do in a relationship.
Don’t live together with roommates: we lived in a
three bedroom, one bathroom house with two other roommates and three cats. Considering
the cats’ litterbox was next to the toilet, that was seven living things
sharing one bathroom.
Don’t try making a long-distance relationship work:
Matt committed to living in Michigan for five years before I was done with my
MFA program in North Carolina.
Don’t break up and get back together: From November
to February of this last year, Matt and I were, for the first time in five
years, not together.
And let’s be honest, there’s a reason you’re not
supposed to do these things in a relationship, because they are all awful. Living
with roommates is awkward and stressful, even if you really like them, and
there is no room for anybody to put things in the fridge. Long distance
relationships are categorically the worst; it’s hard to feel the romance when
you are staring into each others' eyes via a video chat that keeps freezing
your face in weird positions. And breaking up was the worst of all. But we made
all those mistakes, and yet, here we were, unloading our joint toaster oven
from the car.
Matt is the only person
I’ve dated for longer than a few months, so I’m not really a relationship expert,
and also I’m only 25 so I will probably laugh heartily at all my silly, naive,
beliefs about functional relationships when I remember this blog in my 50s, flying
home in my personal hovercraft, but I think it’s not really the mistakes you
make that doom or make a good relationship, it’s how you fix them. When Matt
and I broke up, it would have been easy to get caught up in all the hundreds of
mistakes we have made over the last 5 years, but instead we talked, we
listened, we compromised, and we moved on. I mean, we also cried and yelled and
occasionally angrily hung up on each other (or angrily signed off Facebook
chat, which is a far less satisfying way to end an argument), but in general, we worked hard to make
things better. I think it’s because we like each other. And we genuinely care
that the other person is happy. And we want to be together. For me, those are the important things, not whether or not we bought a toaster oven together or a coffee table (Matt lived in this apartment for a year without a coffee table and didn't even mind, which I think should be a condition registered in the DSM). I know relationships are more complicated than
that, I know we are only 25 and 26 and there are a million other things we will
have to deal with that will make our relationship harder as time goes on, but right
now here we are: one wok, one car, one bottle of normal laundry detergent. And
I’m happy with that. So shut up, Judge Judy. I’m going
to make some toast. Or maybe a chicken breast.
Oh, yay! You're blogging again! I'm so glad! And also weepy, because this post is so true. Three cheers for all the mistakes!
ReplyDeleteYay! Keep writing things so I can feel like you're here talking to me instead of so far away. Jeremy convinced me to buy a massive TV with him when we moved in together and I was kind of Judge Judy style freaked out about it. But now I just really love my TV (Jeremy's pretty great too). When you think about it living together but keeping everything all separate is just pessimistically anticipating that things won't work and you'll have to divide all your possessions. So enjoy your joint toaster oven! Maybe you can even find a way to legally adopt each others cats!
ReplyDeleteI hope Judge Judy style freaked out becomes a common phrase from now on. I wish you were here! You and Joll have to come visit my toaster oven in person.
ReplyDelete*OUR toaster oven!
ReplyDelete