the wedding is still months away, but i have never felt more married than yesterday, when despite me and the man not speaking to each other, we had to communicate on a couple of joint decisions.
i hit my desk around noon and found an email from the assistant to the priest who's marrying us. she said we had to change the date and time of our first meeting. the priest had a conflict, which affected us and another couple. to rebook us both, she had to know from us "right away" if we could change the time.
i looked to see by chance if the assistant had emailed both of us, bride and groom; she hadn't. sigh. that meant a call to the man, after a morning where i knew i was being ignored because i asked him two innocuous, household kind of questions, ("You want me to make you a sandwich for lunch?" "You have anything to mail?") and he didn't answer. (why the deep freeze, you ask? long story short: different strains of the same fight about, "why haven't you taken my car into the shop after you crashed into a guard rail a week ago? (ME) to "I told you about this, you don't listen to me...." (HIM) to a strange fight over him trying to get me a new refrigerator -- which was really his father's old refrigerator, a very nice stainless steel model -- and me being so mad about the car i completely turned down the refrigerator overture, making the man feel rejected. "i was only trying to help" (HIM). my response in my head was "If you want to help, fix the car!).
i had already dialed him at work that morning to ask him why he wasn't talking to me. "I don't know," he responded. Silence. "Let's about this later," he said. We hung up. but there was no more time for more emotional fishing expeditions. with the question from the assistant looming, we had business to take care of. I dialed, he answered. i asked him if the new time worked for him, he said he preferred 11am to the noon option, and i said thanks. we hung up. i emailed the priest's assistant, cc'ing him. done.
in the afternoon, my work phone rings--it's him calling me. "Call Uncle So-and-So and talk to him about the check," he said. we hung up.
i knew what he was talking about. his uncle is rewiring our basement and wanted to get a check yesterday to pay his help. i had to transfer some money, an overnight process, and i knew i wouldn't be home to give his uncle a check. my fiance would get home and see him before i did. speaking terms or lack thereof, between the two of us we had to coordinate the check hand-off.
i spoke to his uncle, then sent my fiance a text message letting him know what arrangements we worked out. then i did something i'm not sure i've done if only but once before in the nearly two years we've been together. i left work without speaking to him. i met a business associate for a drink (no, not an affair...), went to a community meeting after that, and got home close to 10 pm. i didn't know where he was, he didn't know where i was. neither one of us had called the other.
he was my first sight when i walked through the door. he was standing up in the kitchen, making himself a sandwich. i felt a breeze. he had screwed in the fan blades, a request i made a few days before (which had also sparked a micro fight at the time....).
our only exchange was a few words about whether the turkey cold cuts were still good. "It says july 21" he said. "Smells fine," i replied, opening up the bag. he ate; i cooked some pasta. he played solitaire on the computer; i installed some programs on my laptop. one small moment of togetherness -- at some point i played an an online video while we were sitting on the couch and he looked at some of it. hooray for multimedia content.
of course i thought to have a conversation,
THE conversation. i said nothing. the day had already proven to me one undeniable aphorism: we are a couple. through words and actions, we've built something in the last two years that has left us with lives that are inextricably linked. in good times and bad. in speaking times, in stony silence.
it's a lesson i'll have to learn, relearn, master, forget, take a refresher course, etc....once we're married. so this feels like necessary practice to me-- not something i'd ever voluntarily choose of course, but a kind of medicine, all the same.
don't get me wrong, i'm not pleased with the deep freeze. i wish it were over this moment. it makes me sad, and i had trouble sleeping last night. but this is the life i chose and the person who i chose. i want to stick it out. i guess this is what they mean when they say it's not going to be easy.
