My Husband Is Living With Me Again and I Don't Know What To Do.

Just kidding.

I do know what to do. Eat the food offerings he has made me on a daily, wonderful, culinary basis.

So, basically this living situation has made me gain a bed partner and about 5.7 pounds.

As you can probably tell from that very slick into, Brett is back in the Bay Area and we have been like a married couple trying to get to know one another again. And by "married couple" I mean a married couple that was set up in an arranged marriage at 4 and now is thrust upon each other at 16 and has no idea what to do. This means we take a lot of walks where we bump hands, we're shy about bathroom time and things like running out of toilet paper, and we're either intensely sweet to one another or extremely bratty. It's give and take. And always entertaining.

There are moments like today where I spent an exorbitant amount of time making Brett a sandwich. Usually my idea of sandwich making is slapping together meat and cheese and handing it to the lucky recipient between two slices of over mayonnaised bread. I just can't be bothered with the details of it all. With each added ingredient I grow more weary. Lettuce? Ugh. That means washing. A tomato? OH MY GOD. WASHING AND CUTTING. YOU WANT AN ONION NOW, TOO? I HATE YOU.

So, you see how nice and loving it was of me to spend more than 5 seconds in the kitchen constructing a sandwich that had about 6- yes, 6 toppings on top of it. When I proudly plopped it on the table in front of him (with some cut up apples as well,) he looked up at me warily and said: "Oh no. Oh no...what is going on? Oh My God. Are you ok?"

He was serious.

So, as a wife, I probably have work to do.

Brett is truly the chef in the family and I have happily claimed ignorance in the kitchen in order to be fed properly. In reality, I can actually cook a little. Like, I won't poison you or anything and I usually put enough butter into things so that you can interpret them as good. (When I originally wrote that last sentence, auto-correct changed "good" into "food" and I feel like that was hilariously more appropriate. Oh, word.) Anyway, the language that we have constructed in the echoing silence of our separation has been all food related. It's been our unique way of feeling one another out...rediscovering who we are...and trying to figure who we want to be.

I want to be someone who is more patient in life...who can spend more than 2 seconds putting together a sandwich. A person who can lose herself in the lulling moments of cutting, slicing, creating, constructing. A person maybe not so focused on the end result, but more on the journey.

When Brett cooked tonight, he seemed to relax more while I was opening 75 different wines and making him taste them all. He wasn't so regimented in the process. He relaxed in the moment, didn't think about tomorrow as he poured a good red into his glass, and served me the most perfect fillet of fish I have ever tasted.

Life is always and so often in the details. And these details we miss when we become wrapped up in our own ego and agendas and beliefs. Sometimes the purest form of love is slicing up a damn onion for the one you love.

It can be that simple.

At least sometimes.