by M. N. Miller

Created on: June 09, 2008

We were trying very hard to not bump into each other in the small bathroomin our apartment as we maneuvered to get ourselves ready to leave. This was no easy feat as one person could only just manage the space and still have room to open the shower door. The tones we used when speaking to each other were just as delicate as our movements. "Watch your head, I just need to brush my teeth." He moved back so the medicine cabinet door wouldn't hit him and silently stood waiting for me to take out my toothbrush, squeeze on thetoothpaste, put back the tube and close the cabinet doorwhen he moved back in and continued to shave hisfive o'clock shadowwithout a word to me.

Our existence lately consisted of these harshly choreographed movements. There was nothing melodic in our time together. Harmony seemed so far in our past, I began to wonder if those first few months together were remembered dreams rather than actual, concrete memories, they were so hazy and fairy-tale like. The arguments started the same month that he moved into my apartment. The bliss of the newness of a relationship quite abruptly segued into the jaded realizations that the rose-colored glasses were not only off, but broken and in the trash. One day we were giggling in bed in the morning, rubbing our feet together and deciding how we wanted to spend our day together and the next, he would be up and out before I could even roll over and say good morning, leaving a cooling man-shaped space on his side of the bed that I couldn't bring myself to crawl into.

I regaled my friends and therapist with tales of knock-down, drag-out arguments that left us simmering and licking wounds - on good nights, me in the bed, him on the couch, on bad nights, me at a friend's, him at home. He firmly stated that his words were just words, not at all harmful and definitely not more damaging then a shove, a fist, or a yogurt cup splattering on his chest as he so often liked to remind me of at the lowest point in our disagreements. My friends chuckle with camaraderie when I say that I almost started laughing to see him sitting there with yogurt dripping off his face, leavinghis man-shaped spot on the wall behind him, outlinedin purple mixed-berry splash marks, when he stormed off calling me names. My therapist looked at me almost impressed, "you threw a yogurt at him?" not quite believing that I had that in me. She would listen unfazed to these melodramatic stories of simple disagreements transforming into all out wars completewith

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• Next Page >>