There's an interesting effect in a reltionship. Familiarity. As two people spent more and more time together, working through both their individual demons and the friction of a life shared, a peace arrives.
I speak autobiographically of course. The Portland, OR winter has been a soggy one, with jaunts outside fewer than in recent years. We've also taken on a large number of indoor projects. After publishing our first game, deploying a rather nice art display, managing some remodelling and constructing a bouldering wall in the basement, there's been tons of time with a roof over our head.
All of these projects were collaborative, which is how I've arrived at this topic. After the "interesting" moments in a relationship that present new facets of a person's character, the finite set of these moods are exhausted and then one learns to navigate them. I don't believe this is any profound discovery, but one that requires more time and effort than many folks put into their relationship - even after any number of other milestones (dating, living together, marriage, etc).
A friend of mine once said that before commenting on any relationship, "wait until you're somewhat trapped together and utterly bored." Well, that's one metric that I feel this season is presenting. I'm happy to discover that it seems such moments won't be a dry spell for creativity. In fact, we may be more productive than when the sun steals us away to frolic aimlessly.
Even so, I'm excited to abandon winter for a month and head to South America. After my recent lightning-fast mastery of snowboarding, due of course to my wonderful coach, just touring around sounds perfect. Also, a constant flubbering of spanish should be great fun!
J
