Out With the Old & In With the New.

'I can think of ten different times, just on the drive home, that I thought... I should pinch myself. What we have... You and I...'  

He trailed off, once we were home from our (ammmahzing) retreat to Central California.

I spent yesterday reorganizing the minutiae of the house; the things that I hadn't dared touch because this was Jim's Place. I had gotten flustered a few days ago, because yes - I decorated this space & I have drawers in the dresser and a whole side of the closet, but still -  underneath the surface, it did still feel like His. 

So, I started with the bathroom cabinets - the medicine cabinet & the drawers - under the guise of 'Well he uses my face stuff as much, if not more, than I do, so I'm just going to organize.' 

I'll just be right here. I don't want to 'disturb' anything.

I had been (self)relegated to a single drawer while the rest of them where poorly dispersed with dermologica samples and random combs. So, once I was done, and my nail polishes were organized in the medicine cabinet right along next to his hair mud or whatever its called, and he came home, I gave him a tour. 

He loved the organization of it - I may or may not have made some labels - and when we got to the medicine cabinets, my Essies and my Sally Hansens standing proud next to his nose hair trimmer, he smiled and said,

I like that our stuff is together now. 

Later, on the patio, I explained to him exactly what I'm explaining to you - the realization that even though I've been living here for months essentially, I have been walking on eggshells regarding his stuff. His cabinets are his cabinets, his drawers are his, and I don't want to... I don't even know... Be nosy? Cross the Line?

But he stopped me, and said,

No more eggshells. I want this to be Ours. Rearrange and organize all you want, it's your home too. I want it to be that way. It's not even that things will really change all that much, I'm just happy it will be more, I dunno... Official. I'm just happy that its Ours.

So, the following day, I took to editing, well, everything.
The pantry, the pots and pans, the drawer arrangement, the linen closet, the fridge.
To just organize them in a way that makes sense to me, that creates order and simply improve upon them. And, in doing that, I got to know the nooks and crannies that I had been trying not to pry upon; the weird mismatched sheets, the expired and unopened Juice Plus bottles.
I threw things out, folded them better, hung them up.
And its nice, because it gives me a better understanding of what is here and what is ours. What spices we have, what we're running low on. I gives me a greater sense of home, and of control, and of shared space.
Yesterday started with me, cross legged on the kitchen floor, iPad in hand - googling the differences between the 16 sauce pans in his cupboard and ended with the two of us eating Snickerdoodles in bed while watching Downton Abbey.
In between that, after being given the okay to toss things without worry, THIS happened too.
I know it may not seem like a big deal, the idea that underneath the surface it was all still his and my having the go ahead to change it, but it is a big deal to me.
That I didn't have to stare at the eleven jars of jalapenos anymore, or the drawer filled with toiletries lifted from various hotel rooms (oh you know you do it too). Sometimes I am so afraid over overstepping boundaries, or the idea that I've meddled too far or I don't know...
But it felt really good to know that I have free rein in our home together.
Or to quote Downton Abbey, I'm the Lady of the House.

You see, I've always been a good Homemaker, I know this. 

In my past relationship, that was the only thing I felt like was valued. 

I can cook and mend, and clean and entertain. 

I made sure that the Ex's friends all had cold beers during the game.

But to be fully accepted within that home, to be wholly loved and appreciated, to be told I'm smart, to be told I'm funny, to be told I'm beautiful all wrapped together with a look of sheer Love, is not something I've had since I was child. 

I show him the cabinets and that is all well and good, he's glad that I switched where the forks are kept, because we both - for months - have gone for the wrong drawer, and he's thrilled. 

But to follow that up with a dinner where he laughs at all my jokes and listens when I interrupt him, and tells me that he hopes that I always steal food from his plates and looks at me as though he's about to burst into an explosion of pure happiness, rainbows and all, is a new feeling for me. 

We took my eighteen year old cousin to dinner after her first week of college (actually, she is the first of my family to meet Jim) and to have him be so present at dinner, so engaging with my little cousin; to be so honestly interested in her syllabus and her yoga class, that was new to me. 

To be on the phone with my dad, and have him say,

'Well, your boyfriend sounds like a good Man. I look forward to meeting him.'

This is all new to me.

How odd is it, that for me, being in a relationship with a man who educates himself daily, and has an open mind and a warm heart is a new thing? 

That we can go to dinner, and I can spend the meal making him laugh with funny voices and silly quips, and then we can come home and just be. That we can spend ten hours in the car - switching from the Pandora station from stand up comedy to the audio book we bought to NPR and back to comedy. 

Talking and not talking for hours.

To be loved by a man not for what he wants me to be, but for who I am. 

This is all a new to me.