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Loving My Realtor is Wrong… PAGE
TWO: Me: Daniel, you showed me a house with no toilet. A house with no toilet! You know who you show a house with no toilet to? A man with no spleen. Not me, Daniel! Not me! He blamed me for changing my mind so often. Daniel: Last week you only wanted to see Spanish bungalows, this week you hate them. Me: I didn't know I hated them until I saw them -- You're driving too fast, you're making me nauseous. When Daniel and I hit our ninth month of house hunting, I gave him a pen with his name on it and took note that I could have conceived and given birth during this time. I was still living in the same studio apartment I had occupied for the last eight years and bemoaned my lack of space the entire time. I could literally lie on the floor, spread eagle, and very nearly touch all four walls with my hands and feet. But now, I had a new concern. I started to fear getting what I asked for. What would happen if I finally had more space? More space to decorate, more space to get stabbed in? I already checked to make sure my door was locked ten times before I went to bed and still lay awake worrying that every sound I heard was someone breaking into my apartment only to find me alone and defenseless. Or what if my towel rack came loose and I couldn't fix it myself and I didn't have an apartment manager to call? And then the front door handle fell off, and I wouldn't be able to leave my house because I couldn't lock the door, and I'd die of starvation because my friends would get tired of bringing me food. Daniel sent me flowers for my birthday, and he bought me a fax machine so that he could fax me pictures of houses. At our one year anniversary, we spent our first evening together -- dinner and a movie, then out for drinks. Questions about real estate had long been replaced with other, more interesting conversation. What's your favorite snack food? Did you have a dog growing up? What do you draw when you doodle? Isn't it weird that we still doodle the same things we doodled in elementary school? A month later on Open House Sunday the weather was cool, and Daniel was wearing the roll neck sweater I liked so much on him and his tortoise shell glasses that made him look even more sophisticated. We were at Starbucks and had just finished our well rehearsed argument about who would pay. Daniel went to the condiment bar for a packet of sugar in the raw. The barista sat a drink on the counter, and yelled out -- Grande Chai! Daniel! I reached for the drink -- I'll take it. We're together. Time stopped for me at that moment as I finally owned up to something that had been gurgling deep inside me. I saw my true self reflected in that barista's eyes. I smiled broadly, and not having time to run to my truck, I screamed inside my head: Yay for me! I'm in love with my gay realtor! Oh, goody! That makes sense! I mean, there's no time to meet anyone else because I'm too busy spending every waking minute with a man who can never satisfy me! A week later, I put a bid in on a condo because that seemed like a more manageable baby step than a whole house. I realized that I was buying a place to put my stuff and perhaps a little extra room to dance -- I was not, however, purchasing my entire future, a family, or a soft place to land. I would like to say that I moved in and everything fell into place -- that one day, I knocked on my neighbor's door to tell him that I had gotten some of his mail by mistake and he invited me in for a cup of coffee. We sipped it slowly in front of the fireplace, his arm around me and his dog curled up at our feet, and I realized I was finally home. But alas… I have started seeing a therapist to figure out why I obsessively decorate and redecorate my new place. I've bought and returned four couches and am currently writing this while sitting on a floor pillow in my very sparse den. If you called me right now, you'd hear an echo when I spoke. My shrink says that whether searching for a home, a couch, or a husband, you should first identify your needs. Dr. Birnbaum is a wise man. And this may come as a surprise to no one, but I think I'm in love with him.
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Daniel
sensed my growing turmoil and grew tense himself. I feared losing
him and we began to argue like an old married couple. 
