First time loners

Ammon and I are entering another frontier; living alone together. We lived in our own separate places living in Cedar City, UT. I had my matchbox apartment and elephantine dog, he had his borderline-condemned dorm hole. I also lived in my sister's basement shortly before moving to Maine. Shortly after moving to Maine, Ammon moved into the same sister's basement. Thanks, Dani. We both owe you one.

When I moved to Maine, in an even smaller apartment (Geneva basically had to stand in one position), Ammon still lived in Utah. When he moved out to Maine we did live together in that tiny apartment for a few months. It was hell and Ammon would tell you the same thing. Nothing prepares you for suddenly splitting your life with someone else. “No, you can't spend that money, that's MY paycheck.” “What do you mean you're not going to clean up that mess?” We fought like hyenas on crack for those few months but learned a lot about what it meant to be in a partnership. Making it through those fights taught me that my paycheck is OUR paycheck, that trips need to be planned jointly, family time gets split, and chores are never fun even when there are two people doing them. Except for cooking meals; we LOVE cooking nice meals together and particularly when we are cooking for other people. But that is a different entry.

Then we moved into the Maple house. It was interesting trying to navigate our own relationship while at the same time living with (at one point) five other people. Fights were certainly more awkward because it's hard to say "you make me want to suffocate you" in front of roommates without dragging them into it. We had good times living there but like every living situation it was time to move on.



This brings us to our Grant Street home. We love this house like it was our own child. It is the first house either of us actually own and we did it together. We came into the house with big plans and have carried some of those out. Some of them are still in the works.

We moved into the house with our good friend Cami who was working for the Penobscot Theatre Company. Cami is one of our dearest friends and it was amazing that we got to share our first home owner experience with her and Ashley. Ashley, another close friend of ours moved in about a month after we did. Cami moved back to Utah in August and it was Ammon, Ashley, and I holding down the fort. All three of us are very particular about how we live and there were some tense negotiation moments during our time together. "Yes, Ashley I WILL wash the knife by hand." "Fine, Jeremiah, I will turn the fan off when I leave the room."
But in all those usual roommate moments, we never fought, we never grew apart, and we never lost respect for one another. It was the best thing that could have happened to our friendship and I'm sad to see Ashley go.

The day Ashley moved out, yesterday, was also a happy day though for two reasons. The first is that a friend from grad school called us out of the blue and made the drive up from Waterville just to hang out and catch up. Mandi is a high school English teacher down there and because she is so busy (and so are we) we haven't connected in several months. She made us an apple pandowdy (it was freaking delicious) and we went out to eat at UNO's so we could see Ashley who was waiting tables that day. We caught up on each other's lives and it felt like we hadn't skipped a beat, like the several months of no contact was just in our head and that we had actually been interacting this whole time.



The second reason it was a happy day is that we realized we will actually be living alone, having already learned the harsh lessons that living together brings. Granted there are still many more lessons to learn, but we have come
so far. We are excited to have the time to ourselves and experience life as a married couple without roommates. Our first order of business is to consider getting another pet. Geneva also got used to roommates, human and animal, and she is going to be STRESSED OUT living by herself all day.