Fifteen

Why is it so much easier to write about relationships when they are starting or ending?  Is there no in between?

Fifteen years.  That’s a lot of time to experience a whole lot of good and bad with another person.  It is the whole life of the average dog or cat or cow.  It’s three years longer than the amount of time FDR was president.  It’s one year shy of the amount of time you have spent going from first grade to your junior year in college.  It is one third of my life.

What is in between starting and ending?

I think we ignore the bulk of this time unless we are fighting. During a fight we can bring up all the minute incidences when our partners really screwed up.  And of course the good stuff helps us stick through the bad times.  But then there is the really boring shit.  Laundry, brushing teeth while discussing the next day’s schedule, sitting on opposite sides of the house staring into a computer screen, and all that other roommate-type stuff that fills the bulk of our time together.  Nothing romantic there.  In fact it is pretty nice to be able to do that with someone and in many ways this can keep a relationship “alive” for much longer than it should.

How does one know when it is a roommate thing vs. a love thing?

For me it boils down to touch. 

I don’t mean sex because one can have sex with someone and still be roommates.  I mean all those little extra brushes of fingers, kisses on the neck, holding of hands, looking into each others eyes, bringing a gift because you were thinking about them and wishing they were with you.  These are the “little” things that we forget when we fight.  These are the little things that mean that we are more than "just friends" when we are getting together.  These are the little things that slowly disappear and let you know when it is really over.

Touch matters.

Funny, I never noticed the word "ouch" in there.