Love Can Be Found in the Strangest of Places

When my husband and I moved into our first apartment together he was in grad school. I was not yet working so I was in charge of unpacking while he was at class. After several days of sorting through boxes I noticed that he had placed a small brown vase full of potpourri on the mantle. I am not a fan of potpourri nor was I happy with the ugly brown vase being so prominently displayed but I figured that it must be important to him if it was the only thing he had unpacked. If having the vase on the mantle transformed the space into our home; if it was that important to him, I could certainly live with it.

We were sitting around in the living room one night when he asked me, very gently, if we might be able to find someplace else for the little brown vase. “I don’t care what you do with it!” I blurted, not nearly as gently as he had asked.

Nine months! We had been living in the apartment for nine months before I learned that the vase and its contents were not something precious to him and he learned that it was not something of importance to me.

Apparently the vase had been left behind by the previous tenants.

We learned other things that night too. We learned that it is often better to speak up and talk about something with your partner than it is to assume you know the other person’s thoughts on the matter. We learned that we are both willing to compromise for the other and don’t need to impose our desires, especially over trivial things. And we learned that neither of us likes potpourri.