Sentimental Reasons

I'm about to do one of those things I swore I'd never do.

Talk about my relationship. Intentionally. As in, that's my sole purpose for writing today.

And I think that's appropriate. After all, I am getting married in 20 days. (!!!). (!!!). I signed a lease yesterday for our future home. This thing is happening. So it's OK to let on that I am quite fond of the fellow I'm committing to. Right? Right.

It has been insane up here in Seattle. One might even say insane in the membrane. Yep, I'm owning that one (after all, don't you know I'm loco?). Anyway, what with Taylor's school and my quite-terrible-to-me work schedule, it's felt like we have been running around all the time. Constantly working to make time and finish everything on our to-do list. Working to get the next month all planned and settled. And it's been productive, and exciting, but it's suuuuuucked.

That's why this last Friday was the most beautiful day. Since it was my day off, and Taylor doesn't have school that day, and we had no appointments or errands, we spent all day with no stress. No hurrying. Nothing. Glorious.

My favorite moment came later that night, after the movies and dinner and walks, when we got to experience (for the first time in a long time) the beauty of being separate, but together. That wonderful moment where we didn't have to entertain each other. We just wanted to be in the other's company, but not worry about "doing" something.

So we read. Curled up on the couch, legs folded into each other, lost in our own worlds. He read Gadamer, I read Fugitive Pieces. Both of us were caught up in the study of language and how it defines reality. He looked at it through a lens of theory and philosophy, while I relished poetical narrative. We swapped snippets of text like forkfuls of food, chewed and digested bits of books that enhanced the flavor of our own meals, returning to individual reading with new perspective.

That, over anything I've experienced in the impossible beauty of our relationship, made me relish the thought of marrying Taylor. It sums us up perfectly. We are not alike. Taylor and I are more dissimilar than anyone I thought I'd end up with. We don't listen to all the same music, we don't relish all the same foods, we don't enjoy all the same activities. And yet we complement each other perfectly. Our likes are close enough that we can fully appreciate the differences. We both like music. We both like food. We're both intelligent (in my most humble and correct opinion). He helped me appreciate Dave Grohl, I helped him embrace Indian and Greek food. Our approach to intellectual situations is not the same, and yet we respect and enhance the other's opinion.

We're like two parallel lines running close beside each other and sometimes crossing as we influence outlooks, creating this looping track of infinities.

And that's how it's going to be. Forever growing, forever progressing. Forever challenging each other to see the world in a slightly different view. It has been difficult, and frustrating, and everything in between, but trust me when I say IT'S WORTH IT. It's nothing I imagined, but it's better than I thought I could hope for.

In short, I'm looking forward to the many weekends to come.