Friday Night's Alright for Fighting

My main squeeze Adam and I had our first couple fight since we’ve been cohabitating this week. Oh sure we've had our disagreements, mostly because I'm slightly a control freak. And by slightly I mean I’m a 100% control freak. Not because I'm this raging witch that has to have everything my way, but because I'm affected by a case of the crazies, that makes me believe that all the dogs in the world will die if the dirty dishes stay in the sink for any extended length of time. And luckily Adam understands me enough to put up with this, because I don't really ask him to fix too many things for me, instead I just go behind him and do it myself. This is what I learned in therapy: my neurosis need not be anyone else's neurosis.

A few weeks ago, the day before we moved in, I was sitting alone in the empty house waiting for the gas man to arrive. I'm not used to the street cleaning out here in California; we don't have that in the subdivsion we lived in while in Alabama. But I noticed the sign and it said you can't park in the street from Thursday from 1-4. I was all like rockin', because it’s Friday. So I parked on the other side of the street, and did what I was supposed to do. And when I made it back to the car, I was pleasantly surprised to have a parking ticket. Apparently the left side is cleaned on Thursday and the right side is cleaned on Friday. And I just didn't see that sign. I was mad, not because it wasn't fair. But just because I really can't afford it.

Sometimes I have a tendency to close my eyes and pretend that things will just disappear. A blink of an eye and I no longer have that ticket, and the law will totally understand. But of course real life doesn't work that way, and Adam lives in the here and now. The ticket was due today. On Wednesday, I pulled my butt out of bed at the crack of dawn which is around 1:30 p.m. Five minutes later Adam calls me and says that he had brought the ticket to work, and was wondering what I wanted to do about it.

I don't know if it is because I had just woken up five minutes ago (I'm always cranky in the morning), if I was really justified in my rage, or if it was because I was being visited by a unwanted, monthly visitor, but I flew off the handle. And while I was flying off the handle, I knew I was being completely irrational. But I couldn't stop myself. I was just indignant. How dare he not trust me to take care of this ticket? (Even though we both knew I was pretending it didn't exist). Here was my Prince offering to pay for it, and make it disappear, and I was treating him like he was the enemy. Then after we hung up, I sat on the couch fuming but knowing I was being ridiculous.

Adam called me back and said we needed to discuss this, because he did not want me to be mad at him all day. I immediately BURST into tears. I'm telling you this was not my best moment. I'm sure Adam was starting to consider the quickest way he could get my back to Alabama with a t-shirt that stated, "Dear Debbie (my mom), You Deal With This!"

But eventually I calmed down enough to admit that I didn't know what was wrong with me, and would he still please please take care of it for me. And maybe we could just pretend this never happened, and he should not talk to me when I first wake up. And when he came home, we were both happy.

This is probably weird that I'm blogging about our first fight. But in a way I'm glad that we have had our first fight. Because neither of us resorted to insulting each other or screaming, "Your mother looks like a HIPPOTAMUS!" (Our mothers are lovely, I promise) This is what it must feel like to be a grown-up, because in my past relationships the “Yo Mama” jokes have been a fighting technique.