So… word on the street is that SOMEONE has been criticizing my living style.

Gone are the days when I could accidentally leave my wet towel on my bed without getting the death stare.

Gone are the days when I could just throw my clothes on the floor in my own bedroom. As long as I had an easy path to my bed, I was all set.

And last but certainly not least, gone are the days when I’d come home from a long day of work and had my beautiful, luxurious and uber-comfortable recliner wide open, desperately waiting for me to perch myself upon it.

Unfortunately for me, Hannah always gets home before me. And if she’s not in my chair, Humphrey is.

This past May I embarked upon my latest journey – Independence. AKA rent, electric, cat food, grocery shopping, scooping a litter box, and cleaning the bathroom every weekend.

Sounds fun, right?

It really is. But I know I couldn’t have done it without Hannah.

If it weren’t for her interior design skills and cleanliness, the whole trailer home would be a hamper. I’d be doing towel loads every day because they’re all damp and stinky from sitting on the bed all day, and the trailer wouldn’t be as “bright,” whatever that means.

Plus, I really suck at cooking. I can do it, but usually nine catastrophes occur and it takes about 40 minutes to cook a mediocre burger.

Hannah is a pro. I greatly appreciate her for being the chef in the house. Which is why I graciously take on the busboy role.

But with all that being said, I certainly have my gripes as well.

Hannah is a firm believer that the “vibes” are way more important than my comfort and convenience of living.

I can’t go a day without hearing her complain about how “ugly” my chair is even though she sits in it all the time. I can’t leave my deodorant on the dresser in the living room so I can quickly and easily use it before leaving for work. And I certainly can’t get TV tables because they’d look bad sitting in the house.

She then proceeds to laugh at me when food bits fall into my beard because I’m being forced to eat out of my lap when we have a “chair meal” – which in our terms is a meal that isn’t so messy that we have to sit at the table.

Then there was the whole dresser fiasco. We go down to Connecticut for a quick family visit. Now Hannah and I love to thrift, so I took her to the best one down there. Of course, she finds this immaculate once-in-a-lifetime dresser for $40. We had already left the store when she decided she *needed* it.

This, of course, happened in COVID time, so to get back in we had to wait in a line… outside… in the rain… for the store occupancy limit to go down. When Hannah and I were next in line, only one person left the store, so Hannah went in without me to claim the dresser while I continued to stand in the rain.

On top of all that, this was the trip to CT where we were going down to bring up my recliner and the paddleboard and a rather large TV back up with us. So now I had to figure out how to jam the dresser in the truck as well.

Thanks to how perfect the dresser fit the “vibes,” we managed to get it back up. And we only had to redo everything in the bed of the truck four times to make it all fit.

I could go into the fact that she refuses to put a garbage bin in our bedroom so I don’t constantly find numerous contacts laying on the floor (I guess a garbage bin in the bedroom is a major “vibes” violation), or how I find her sweatshirts inside-out with her shirt still tangled up in them laying around the house, or even how we can only have gold silverware in the house… but I’ll save you the trouble.

Overall, it’s been a very fun journey. Of course, we can get on each other’s nerves, but it wouldn’t be normal if we didn’t. At the end of the day, I wouldn’t be happier with anyone else – even when she’s scream-singing show tunes in the car.

Just know this… no matter how much she complains about that recliner, please understand that deep deep down, way down in the depths of her soul, she likes it. Comfort will always eventually overcome the “vibes.”