gasp

I swore to myself almost 3 years ago that I would never, ever do this. I would not live with a man unless I was married. End of discussion.

However, I find myself in quite the opposite frame of mind these days and I'm actually feeling quite excited about the prospect of living under the same roof as my beau.

You see, I had a bad experience a few years back. In my last year(s) of college I dated a boy who had previously dropped out. He was a good hearted guy and we had a lot of fun together. However, he had a temper, couldn't hold a job and had no qualms about living off his woman. For some reason I thought it would be good for us to live together. After graduating college I got a job working for an educational publisher in Boston. It was my dream job and I was very excited about opening the doors to the publishing world and starting my career. He worked at spa store in Nashua, NH. It was the only job he'd been able to hold for more than a few months since we were together and we decided it was important for us to live somewhere in between our two 'offices'.

In between turned out to be Ayer, Massachusetts. At first glance it was perfect. A nice enough one bedroom apartment a few blocks up from the train station, a nice enough town with a restaurant and a pool hall. For some reason I totally pressured myself to be all that I could be in domestication. After commuting an hour and 45 minutes both ways to my job I would come home and make some sort of meat and potatoes dinner, watch TV and pass out. On the weekends I would grocery shop, pay bills and clean house. My money was the only money that could be applied to household needs, bills, and rent.

My boyfriend at the time ended up going through 3 or 4 jobs, never holding down anything solid. I ended up loosing touch with a lot of my friends, alienating my family and I was so exhausted from the commute to work that I was getting migraines every other day. He spent his days hanging out at home building star wars lego ships while I busted ass to make a life for us. I finally snapped-to one day and kicked him out.

After that experience I promised myself that I would never move-in with a boy unless I was married to him. Now I've got this great opportunity for a new job out west. I've got to take it. But, I have this amazing man in my life that I'm not going to loose for anything. So, we'll move in together and I'll amend my original promise to myself.

I promise that in this incarnation of living with a boy I will:
-keep my friends and my social life!
-not do all of the cleaning
-cook what I want, when I want (which usually happens to be everything all the time)
-maintain an active lifestyle
-foster new friendships and community
-remain sexy and mysterious
-never take my relationship or my individuality for granted

The thing is I'm not worried about any of these things. Zack is truly an angel of a man. He encourages and supports me to be the best I can be in all areas of my life. He inspires me to be a better humanitarian, to foster relationships outside our own, to reach as far out as I can to live my dreams. This move is going to be hard for both of us, we're leaving a seriously comportable and cushy life here.

Amen.