Kills an Appetite

I moved in with my girlfriend not too long ago, and we have a roommate. I love both of these women, and living with them has been fun. Imagine Scrabble tournaments, pajama days, gossiping on the green couch, having a shoulder to cry on at all hours, and movie nights. Great fun. Love them, love them, love them!

But.

I am going through some adjustments, personally. For example, I have found that seemingly small details are representative, for me, of a greater personal struggle. Like the day I couldn't find my frozen vegan pizza because there was White Castle in the way. I pretty much had a break down, sobbing about how unfair it is to go from living in a consciously meat-free, fast-food free space into....a house with roommates. Or opening our cleaning cupboard, in which my one or two bottles of non-toxic cleaner are completely overshadowed by jumbo size toxic cleaners. 409! Mr. Clean! Stinky Mystery Cleaner! Bleach!

There's this thing about sharing space that is so.....difficult. I have lived by myself for quite a while, and moving in with two roommates who are very different from me is proving to be a challenge. It's funny, it never occurred to me that I would have to speak up about things like not using bleach or trying to reduce the amount of packaged products we buy because it just wasn't a concern for me, living alone. I didn't have it, didn't buy it, never thought about it. I am finding myself regularly blindsided by things like fragrant fabric softener and pre-sliced preservative-saturated turkey breast buddying up next to my tofu.

Sometimes the "peacefully coexist" mantra seems so idealistic. I mean, at the very least, shoveling frozen White Castle out of the way in order to get to Amy's Organic Pizza kills an appetite.