As I reflect on the past 4 years of our lives together, the theme that recurs again and again...is compromise. Mostly his. He embraces the cat. He tolerates my shopping. And my non-stop talking. He accepts my bi-weekly emptying/cleaning/reorganizing of the refrigerator. He assuages my anxieties.
As for me, I've done my share of meeting in the middle. I just laugh now when I think how excited I was about setting up a home together and getting new furniture. We've bought none. Nada. Well, other than a futon and a hand-me-down table and chairs for the kitchen. I'm still living with the same leather/vinyl beige couch he had when we met. I'd love to lobby to get rid of it. But it's difficult when it's still in good shape (barring a few places where the pleather is getting worn) and is long enough for David to stretch all the way out on. For our third anniversary (leather), we did jointly buy ourselves a new leather recliner...which the cat subsequently scratched. Oops.
I finally just gave up and broke down and painted our $149 Kmart entertainment center, which houses our 9-year-old, 175 pound, hands-down, oldest. picture tube. TV. still. alive. I use the term "still alive" loosely as it's recently started having lines run across it that can only be corrected by one of us banging our fist on the top of the screen. Over the years I've also allowed the head of a dead animal to be mounted on my wall, learned to cook and eat said animal, agreed to attempt to stick to a budget, and grown accustomed to a thermostat setting that's sometimes 5 degrees below what I'd prefer.
While we've learned to see eye-to-eye on most of the major issues, there are still some inconsequential ones on which neither of us seems willing to budge. Take the toothpaste, for instance. David feels it should be squeezed from the bottom up on every use. I, on the other hand, feel this extra effort is a waste of time. That is, until the tube is almost empty...at which point I'll make a last ditch effort to conserve.
Another area of contention is our T-shirt folding methods. He finds the way I fold T-shirts to be unacceptable. His method results in a folded shirt that readily displays the pocket or the logo in the pocket area, so he can easily tell exactly which shirt it is without having to unfold it at all. I've tried to learn his bass-ackwards way of folding T-shirts, but it just feels wrong. Some habits die hard.
But of all the differences of opinion, the one that I find most difficult to resolve is the issue of the toilet paper. I wish I could say it didn't matter to me. But, unfortunately, it does. I honestly prefer for the loose end of the toilet paper to come from underneath the roll. For one reason and one reason only...it's easier to tear. End of discussion. Then again...in our crazy, hectic lives these days...we're doing good if we even manage to get the roll changed out at all!
Q: Over or under?
A:
Under!!!
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