It’s blissful. It really really is. But it’s also eye opening in some unexpected ways.

For instance, on Monday, I decided I had to put away all of my clothes. My first day back at work was Tuesday, and I didn’t want to be running around, digging through boxes, searching for something suitable to wear. So I went into the guest bedroom, which was playing host to mounds and mounds of my t-shirts, pajama pants, socks, bathing suits, and sweaters, and loaded up a laundry basket full of disparate clothes to take to the living room where GTB was watching the M’s game. The best way to get started, I figured, was to fold and sort them into logical piles. Then, based on how large those piles were, I’d find a place for them in my chest of drawers or one of two closets.

Laundry basket load number one: finished. Laundry basket load number two: finished. When I came out of the bedroom with the fifth load, GTB said, “Are you kidding me?”

I’ve never really thought of myself as a clothes hound. I’m just not girly in that way. I have made a habit of going through my clothes twice a year to get rid of the stuff I don’t wear. And before I started packing in Seattle, I weeded my clothes out even more, taking three large bags of stuff I convinced myself I didn’t really need to the Goodwill. (I hope whoever buys all of my discarded black dresses is nice to them.)

In the end, I found a place for everything. One of those places, of course, was a collection of three Rubbermaid bins in the basement, oh and the coat closet in the downstairs bedroom, but it’s all put away now. Phew. But at that moment, when GTB said to me, “I’ve never known you to be a big shopper. Where did all these clothes come from?” I realized that I am, in fact, a girl. A girl with lots of clothes, turns out.

Another thing that’s funny about living with a boy is how instantly not cool it makes you. On Saturday night, after a day of loading and unloading the U-Haul, GTB went to buy beer and pizza. When he came back, after he’d put away all of the beer and snacks he bought, I went to the fridge for some water and noticed all the beer that was in there. “Awesome,” I think I said out loud. I’ve always had beer in my house. I’m one of those girls who truly likes it. At quittin’ time everyday, I seriously say to myself, “It’s beer-thirty.”

But now, I’m not the cool girl who has beer in her fridge. Sure, it’s nice living with a boy who likes it as much as I do because I know it will always be there, even if I forget to pick some up. But the fact that it’s there is no longer a reflection of me and my cool-because-I’m-a-hick-who-likes-beer-straight-outta-the-bottle-ness. Now, it just shows that I live with a boy. Ya know?

Other than that though, I LOVE living with GTB. Yes, it’s been less than a week, but so far, it’s heavenly. Our stuff, though a bit mishmashed, blended pretty well together. He hooked up all the electronics and figured out cord logistics; I organized the kitchen. We’ve just about perfected the morning shower ballet. Our commutes are about the same, so we leave and get home at about the same time. We work really well together in the kitchen making dinner or breakfast. We were able to manage two grocery store runs without fighting over the appropriate kind of snacks or milk or butter (“Unsalted? Doesn’t that taste funny?”).

Of course, we haven’t hung art yet.

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