A Matter of Convenience

You might do it to save money. Or to claim, "It just makes more sense" because you sleep together every night anyway. The nights you are apart happen because you are both lazy, and no one wants to make the trip to the other's bed. At the beginning of things, though, this doesn't happen. At the beginning, no one is lazy or speaks of the other taking things for granted. One finds the other over more because of a matter of convenience - a pet, a better TV, more space. I often find Rosa over here more often than I am at her house. She will call me to let me know she is up and ready and I will drive over to pick her up. She revels in the fact that I have cable and she can watch her favorite channel, Court TV. I am also the cook of the bunch. Simple country breakfasts are prepared and eaten upon my kitchen table as we talk of how we slept, or about our dreams. It is a pleasant arrangement.

My first serious relationship in college was with a girl torn between two worlds. She was an ardent Christian, almost orthodox, disdaining sleeping together or staying over. Yet, every night, she would call me and I would crawl through the window of her ground-floor dorm room. We would make love on a comforter upon the floor as we laughed and talked until regret hit. "I can believe I keep doing this," she would say as the weight of her perceived sins bore down on her. "I can't believe I keep sinning." It always perplexed me how something so natural and pleasurable could bring about such regret and negative emotion. We would drift apart as she grew closer to God and I became a better heathen.

My second girlfriend was also waiting for marriage to commit the most pleasurable of deeds. "I'm saving myself for the right man," she would say. It would become a game to see how far I could get in our make-out sessions. "How far did you get tonight?" my roommate would ask like the crass and crude young college males we were. "Second base," I would often reply. "She just doesn't want to commit." Her name was Sally and I now realize she was a wonderful woman and would have made a good wife. Me and Sally had the kind of relationship where we shared everything. Our clothes, cars, and lives were intermingled. Yet, we didn't make love, but would often sleep over. I will never forget when we broke up seeing all her hair care products in my bathroom for months. Little stalwart reminders of what was and what could have been. I finally threw them away when I decided I was over her.

I have thought long and hard of asking Rosa to move in with me. The house she rents is in poor shape with a lackluster landlord. Rosa begrudgingly calls him the "slum lord." I catch myself having to pull back on the reigns to slow down and take things a step at a time. I have always been impetuous and want to rush forward, head first, with great zeal and ambition. She would say yes I am sure, but would it complicate matters? How will we handle things when our lives become intrinsically intermingled? They say love can cause us to turn a blind eye to our mate's foibles. I know all of Rosa's foibles. Her terrible taste in style and clothes. Her propensity to bite her fingernails out of nervousness. Her complete lack of any modesty what-so-ever. The thousand myriad questions she will ask after a hard day. I am well prepared for what's to come. But I am going to wait. I still haven't even told her I love her and I am making grand plans on how we will spend our lives together. Impetuous, I tell you.