Generally speaking, we New Yorkers move fast and romantically-speaking, we move-in (together) fast. I think it's just a simple economics-thing. We're not especially needy here, or at least we women aren't before our high-forties; when that inevitably happens, one must be single and childless in order to get to the classic needy status: then, things begin to get a little bit hairy.
Miss Independent, Miss Take-the-Road-Less-Traveled (me) met my husband at age twenty eight: way before any notion of menopause and way before I ever had the chance to get ripe, much less, hairy-classic-needy. I was pretty relaxed: quite frankly, I have gone on more one-time-only-dates in this city than a person should care to admit to. At the time, I was a workaholic for a fashion company that was definitely not improving me or the world: I was not saving lives, I was not stopping world hunger, and I was not saving anything for myself, as I was not properly compensated or even appreciated. Nonetheless, I was going out, all of the time, skimming the surface of life, and enjoying the iconic and other underground aspects of The City in ways only the carefree can. I was pretty happy. And I had no idea that Don (my husband) was going to be a "be all, end all" character in my play on Life. Personally, I could have cared less.
In a freak anomaly and great contrast to my character, Don and I moved in together...after the third date. After three months, we were engaged. In five years, we have had the opportunity to spend 1,825 nights together. We have spent a total of 8 apart. In the beginning, that's a lot of sex; in the middle -with twins - that's a lot of interrupted sleep patterns and now, it's Life.
In the beginning of our cohabitation and certainly in the beginning of our marriage, there was all sorts of basic craziness and adjustment issues: I am surprised that both of us are still standing after all the shoot-'em-up fights we had. People who have come to blows, you have nothing on us: my husband and I have come to BOMBS. We have survived a fast-forward existence together - with twins - and all of the unparalleled stress and mismanagement that one could possibly afford. Amazingly, all of our bumps are now basic and household related: Pick up your socks, don't f*ck up my folding in the linen closet when you get a towel, and clean out the sink drain stopper before you go to bed. Banal-banal, boring-boring, tedious, nagging, crap. But, it exists as we do: we are the odd couple. I am the instinct-driven writer, he is the ever-logical lawyer. I am gauze, he is sediment. I grew up in a house with covered furniture, dusted plant leaves and glass-shiny floors that you could safely eat off of; I used my pants as hand towels: Mom didn't want kid-grime on her good bathroom linens.
My husband lived in a hurricane house. Everything, everywhere. Shockingly-mockingly, hand towels were used for dirty hands and used and used and used before they were ever washed. Nothing was precious, everything, practical and yes, things were organized, as in Organized Chaos. Anyway, put the two breeds of us together, and you end up with a dachshund body and wolf hound legs. It's not always a go. As we look into compatible housing with the New York public school system, I have a recurring light bulb moment:
WHY DON'T WE BUY TWO ONE-BEDROOM APARTMENTS ACROSS FROM ONE ANOTHER?
I really mean it. I LOVE MY HUSBAND. I just want to divorce his living habits. Me and my habits are a perfect match for Don, however, our living habits together are not matchy-matchy: Don likes having a live-in, dust-buster-maid that cooks well and smothers his children with love. Don't get me wrong - I have a fairly good gig here - but, I'm not - not - sweet on the maid bit. We've had cleaning ladies. They don't help. They shrink my jeans, dry my bras on high heat and have permanent, deafening wax in their ears, as they do not seem to hear the words: "NO bras in dryer", nick the legs of my furniture with the vacuum, take almost a hundred of my bucks a week, and yet, they are never available at 1 a.m. when I blow a gasket over a mound of raisins spilled under the couch: my husband is an exterminator's nightmare and a roach's romantic fantasy.
I don't need a maid...I need a self-clone robot.
I need my own apartment, so that my husband can:
Strew his stuff about EVERYWHERE! ANYWHERE!
Watch baseball 24-7
Listen to The Grateful Dead, 24-7
Cook his smelly eggs and toot his smelly farts...24-7
Let his dirty socks pile up and up and up
Un-fold-fold ANYWAY he likes
Ah, I can just imagine: The girls would dart across the hall and back to Mommy's-to-Daddy's-to-Mommy's; every night could be date night - how novel, how exciting:
"My place or yours?"
I think this is a fantasy, or better yet, a description of an ultra-amicable divorce: a fantasy.
My mother-in-law, once-widow, once told me:
"Appreciate it all. In the end, you won't remember all of the dirty socks."
