The Adventure, Part 6: In Which I Get Over Myself

And then, one day, the obsessing stopped. I’m not sure why. Maybe my brain just needed some semblance of domestic routine and normalcy after all the weeks of living like a refugee. Maybe I’d burned it all out of my system. Maybe some part of me realized that it actually didn’t matter if the bed wasn’t made perfectly, John would still love me, would not change his mind and kick me out.

I woke up one morning and I was happy. Content. Settled. The dreams about my exes and all my hair falling out stopped. The thousand and one peculiarities of John that had annoyed the crap out of me didn’t anymore. I quit crafting escape plans in my head (just in case). I’m sure he realized that something had shifted, settled. I’m sure he noticed I was happier and more talkative and less stressed, and I’m sure he was happier because of it.

Don’t get me wrong, there were fights--moving in with someone is never easy, especially when you do it after only two months of serious dating, seven weeks of which had been spent apart. Especially when the both of you have been living alone for years. Especially when you’re both gun-shy about starting a new serious relationship. Especially when one of you has to move to the opposite coast and then can’t find an actual job, has to temp for $20K less a year than she was making in New York. But it was all worth it. He was worth it.

Even the fact that there were fights was a seismic shift for me. In my previous relationships, I’d been too passive. If something was wrong, I kept my mouth firmly shut. Better not to rock the boat. Better not to risk making him mad, then getting dumped. Just ignore it, eventually the problem will go away or work itself out. Little wonder, then, that none of those relationships made it. With John, I made a firm pledge not to do that again. If I was going to move all that way, put everything on the line for the sake of this relationship, I was damn well going to point out when something bothered me.

I’m sure I went a little too far in the opposite direction at first. That dam had burst, and all the words I’d held back for all those years came pouring out. Suddenly everything was a big deal, a massive deal, because I was talking about it. It was a revelation.