Yay- I have a boyfriend

And he's my husband! "What?!" Let me explain:

Dan and I are known for having this kind of perfect relationship, kind of sickeningly so, as some of you keep telling me. We are on the same page with all the big stuff, and look out for each other, and really are friends too, and we both know we are lucky and appreciate our lives. BUT...

There's been a bit of drifting going on over the last year or so. Drifting we didn't really notice at first.

Dan could care less about my writing-- which, when I'm going full tilt at, is consuming in a way only an addict could probably understand. That's OK. It's my thing. He also isn't into art beyond wanting me to be working at it and asking when another check is coming. That's OK. I'm really not that into injection molding (his job) either, so...

But Dan is a really hard worker, and he loves our place, which we moved to a couple years ago. Any homeowner knows, you never run out of work and projects to do around a house, and Dan seems to kind of dig that. I, on the other hand, am a really hard player. I'm always trying new things and fighting boredom. I plan on living super long, but your time can be up at any moment, and I don't want to have wasted mine doing menial tasks that mean nothing to me. Suddenly without realizing it, we'd quit hanging out together, even though we were living right under the same roof and weren't mad at each other.

Despite having a number of other connections, I felt lonely. I was making a lot of writer buds online to talk about that stuff with. Trusty Pam is willing to do all the darey, boredom fighting stuff with me or else I just go by myself. I'm lucky to have some really good friends who are artists and designers too, so can talk about all that with them (except art etc isn't really that thrilling to talk about so mostly we just screw around and have fun). And Dan was in his own orbit working on all the innumerable projects around the house, mostly by himself.

I've been getting weird vibes from him. I've been asking him if anything is wrong. He's been saying no, no, and no. (You have to ask a bunch of times.) Finally the other night he piped-up. We'd drifted apart and he didn't like it. We'd drifted apart and I didn't like it either.

We stayed up late into the night talking about stuff that bugged him, stuff I could have gotten all defensive about, but I know Dan enough to know if he says anything, it's something important to him, and I need to hear it. Then I told him how I felt. He listened even when I had a hard time explaining myself. He doesn't demand that all my jumbled feelings make total sense. He knows even if I can't speak them they're real and important.

We made an agreement to be more of a unit again and split up the work/play time more evenly and spend more of it together. "Us" is the most important thing in our lives.

So we worked on the roof together most of the weekend, and yesterday when it got nice out he wrapped it up and we went for a paddle on the river. We kayaked as far as we could up river, until there were rapids that were impassible, then floated down for a while, drifting and eating the cookies I brought with.

There is a flywheel inside me that is always spinning. I need to move to get rid of the pent-up energy. It relaxes me. Usually going slow, or just "relaxing" is strangely anxiety producing for me. Dan positioned our kayaks so we were facing each other and we quit paddling and just looked at each other and the beautiful day and let the current carry us downstream. And the flywheel slowed way down. I was calm. I relaxed, leaning back and letting my legs dangle over the side. It was great, like a big sigh just when you need it.

Dan is the only one who affects me like this. He's the SueWhisperer I guess. After, we both felt like we were back, and glad we did the hard work of talking it all through until we were both satisfied.

Relationships are like a little fire you have to keep tending I guess.