When I used to do Instagram I ultimately decided the whole thing should just be an Abby fan page, all my best pictures were of her, obviously. Not everything was of Abby, of course, but I think it still stood as a fan page. A fan page needn’t only be images of the celebrity it adores. 

This whole blog is a thing written with her just out of frame, and sometimes squarely within it in the increasingly frequent AAPs.

I think some people might argue that that extent of connection and time spent together is a bad thing. I think those people are sad and unlucky. The same sort of sad, unlucky experience that makes someone think having kids is bad. 

Now, having kids may not be for you, having a partner you want to spend all day every day with only to write appreciation blog posts about them at night, may not be for you. But that does not make it a bad thing.

Things that are rare, or difficult to do, achieve, or maintain are not bad.

It helps to realize that nothing is actually easy, things are just hard differently, or at different times, or in different concentrations. 

Abby doesn’t read the blog much these days, but she was thinking about the same sort of thing I was when I made my post about our ability to remain differently cool. She had the additional insight that it’s not so much that we excel in different situations, it has more to do with when the anxiety struck. 

Abby was driving when the brakes locked up, I was driving when the window was smashed. It was the person not driving that comforted the other and remained cool-headed. It’s not about roles so much as just...support. We see our partner having a difficult time and our nervous system responds in a way necessary to support them. We don’t freak out because we have to be strong. 

Which reminds me of a movie quote I think of all the time. 
“when I kill that guy, you have 30’ to get to that guy, can you do it?”
“I have to.”

So many things, from work to relationships to cooking are best served by this exact reaction. A cool, calm, collected...I can because I have to. That isn’t resigned depression or childish petulence, it’s cold-blooded adulthood.