{trust your instinct}

Co-habitation.

I learn something new every day. I have learned to accept the fact that things will be messier than I want them to be, that I will have computer cables in my life and that clothes on the banister are not there to spite me. And in fact, if all those things disappeared, I might be happy for a second (or maybe a week) but that that is not where the true source of my happiness comes from.

But I have learned something far more important about trusting my instinct. My whole life I have been in control of the spaces that I lived in - staying up until the wee hours of the night to unpack every box and hang every picture when I moved. There was never anyone's opinion to ask and if I had roommates, they either trusted me implicitly or I trusted them - and decisions were effortless.

But now, I live with a man - a good man, who doesn't understand the need for superfluous pillows and does have an opinion every once in while about the space that he lives in. And I want him to have an opinion - it's his space too. So when it came time to get new bath mats for the bathroom, we headed to Bed, Bath & Beyond and made a decision together.

I knew he didn't like I what I liked. And when he pulled out the blue fluffy ones, I knew I didn't like what he liked. And in my gut - I knew I wouldn't learn to love them either. But I figured, they are bath mats - I can learn to live with them. But I can't.

It's been over a year and what I realize is that it is less about the bathmats and more than I did not listen to my gut reaction. I should have listened to my instinct and continued the search - knowing and trusting that we would find something that we both liked.

So be patient and listen to your own opinion and instinct - whether it's for choosing your next job or a new set of bathmats. The right thing will appear.