Crossing State Lines

Christopher and I went away together last weekend to my father's beach house in rural South Carolina. It didn't really occur to me the significance of being comfortable with someone you're going to go away with because:

• You're about to spend 5 hours locked in a box on wheels together. This could create all sorts of conflict if one person doesn't like the other's driving, car temperature or choice of music.
• In rural South Carolina, there's not much of an opportunity to look at another face for 3 days unless you drive 15 miles into town. So you better really like the person you're with.

Fortunately for the both of us and our sanities, this turned out not to be a problem. I think we both have pleasing and agreeable personalities, so nothing was a conflict. It basically went on where one person would make a request and the other would agree. If he wanted to stop for the 5th time in 4 hours to go to the bathroom yet again, I could have probably used another drink from singing along with radio. And when I made wrong turns (twice) and got us turned around, he never said a word.

We basically played house. It's easy to play house when you're in an actual house with house items. Christopher would grill amazing dinners for the two of us and I'd set the table. Back home, Christopher's kitchen table is actually a foosball table (a la Friends) and mine is pushed into a corner to hold my bags from shopping.

I would open up a kitchen cabinet and pull out tequila! margarita mix! a blender! none of which are in my apartment, and we'd make a pitcher of margaritas to drink on the beach. It was just so easy not having to plan things and just being able to use what was there. Having margaritas at my apartment would involve going to two stores and buying an actual blender.

There were a lot of firsts. The first time Christopher hooked up a trailer to a pickup truck. The first time we ever dragged a trailer behind the truck because it fell off during one unfortunate bump in the road. The first time I ever backed a trailer down a boat ramp. It was stressful situation and I kind of got frazzled (losing cargo on trailer or pickup truck into the ocean would have resulted in penalty of death, not to mention loss of access to free beach house). But we worked well together.

There was also a relationship first: it was first time we didn't go to bed at the same time. I'd go in early and he would follow when he was ready. The world didn't crumble.

We prolonged leaving on Sunday as long as we could, and when we finally pulled away, Christopher applauded, "Great weekend. Bye beach!"

There will be a few more stories, but I might just keep the details to myself. Feels more special that way.