Having Pants back home is worth it, though, even the part where it's 110 outside and I'm suffering the indignity of a 102 degree fever. Beer seems like such a logical choice to cool down with, and yet it's such a bad idea. I spent the majority of Saturday sweating on the couch and prevailing upon Pants to refresh my wet washcloth, which went from cool to clammy to flesh temperature with maddening quickness, and hissing at my pets to get away from me. Sunday found me much better, and today I'm quite chipper despite the fact that deep breaths make my lungs buzz and rumble. Back to the doctor, who will again try to convince me that I have asthma and not just bad luck.
Yesterday marked a tentative foray into the mixing of my social circles. Every place we've lived, I've taken a job in a different city and commuted to work, mostly because the town we lived in was too small to find use for liberal arts degrees. So that left me with a work group of friends separate from the military circles Pants and I hung out with as a couple. This isn't new for me-- usually in dating relationships, I instinctively quarantined certain areas of my life as single-me only. I never concealed the fact that I was dating someone, but my boyfriend was definitely ancillary to my identity in that group, and on the few occasions where I would bring a boyfriend to an event or outing, it was invariably weird because I felt like I needed to edit myself around him and the group, that the two versions of me didn't mix.
But this is different. My other-city life now is about more than just a paycheck. It's a chance for me to pursue work in a field that actually interests me, that I hope will help me develop as an artist. This seems vitally important to share with Pants, despite any residual squeamishness I have about keeping my painting colors separate on the palette. I think the reason I did that in the first place was that I didn't want my identity and relationships changing with every new boyfriend. What if my high school buddies thought he was a douche? What if the people I worked with at the humor magazine didn't think he was funny? Or what if my friends absolutely adored him and then complained when we broke up? If I knew for sure that the relationship wasn't going to last (and I knew that with all of them), why risk contaminating other areas of my life, or being too hedged in by other people's perceptions of who I was or how I acted as a girlfriend?
I realize that this was unfair of me, that it was evidence of my failure to commit and my fear of the judgment of others, who more than likely would have accepted even a knuckle-dragging mouth-breather if I said I loved him. What I'm realizing now is that Pants isn't going anywhere, and I'm only limiting his understanding of me if I keep up the quarantine theory of social circles. Geography and his schedule make the mixing something I have to consciously plan, but so far it's been resoundingly successful. He's funny and versatile, he remembers names, and it seems like he can find common ground in obscure movies with just about anyone. In other words, he doesn't suffer from my sometimes crippling social anxiety, which makes me believe that if I just stay quiet enough and don't blink I can actually become the corner of the sofa I've wedged myself into.
Another factor makes me nervous with these chemical experiments I'm doing-- the volatility of people's perceptions of the military. When you only hang out with other pilots, this is obviously not a problem, but when you decide to mingle with writers and poets and artsy university types (which I'd never had cause to think of as types before), you run the risk of friction, or possibly combustion. What's unfortunate here is that often I agree with the underlying principle of opposition to the war, but so many of its critics seem vastly uninformed about the day to day lives of those who do serve, and what that service and sacrifice mean. In many ways I feel caught in the middle. I know for sure which side I'm on when the odd tasteless remark about bombing people pops out at a military party, but I also know exactly where I'll be if some writer drops a "warmonger" remark around me or starts popping off about the evils of the "military-industrial complex." To be sure, it's a fine line to walk, even without throwing in the complicating factor that I was raised and educated on Big Oil's dime... but that's all for a much, much bigger project.
Anyway, the barbecue we went to together yesterday was a small but important victory in this mingling endeavor, and luckily it didn't come with any further hitchhiking sicknesses.
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