My Story

One day in the spring of ’05, on what shall forever be known as ‘the day I came to yell at you,’ I realized I was completely and utterly in love with ‘the one,’ and so I committed all the limbs of my octopus heart to loving just this one woman as much as I could. But of course the old habits of those limbs and the pride of that heart have been slow and hard in their death.

In March of 2008, I had the bright but unoriginal idea of letting my wife be in charge of our lives together. Three weeks later I managed to tell her about it, but she remained skeptical about how much control she really wants between us, how much personality I’ll retain, and how much long-term success such experimenting with your life can have. Unsurprisingly, I ended up agreeing there’s at least a kernel of truth in her thoughts and reservations.

So for now we’ve agreed she has the last word on anything she wants to have the last word on. And while she might not yet want to have the last word on everything I want her to have the last word on, neither have I managed to do the laundry, the cleaning, the cooking and the budget the way she wants every time. Perhaps we’d be about even if either of us were bothering to keep that kind of score, but we’re not. What I am keeping track of here are only the little epiphanies and triumphs of learning my life lessons and of keeping my octopus limbs where they belong.

You can find out (a lot) more if you read about my octopus heart.