Once remarried, we both settled in, painting the walls white and arranging our little fixer upper to suit our different tastes. Tastes aside and first things first, we agreed; some tasks would have to take priority: most notably, the snails, weeds, out-of-control wisteria, and assorted indoor/outdoor plumbing problems. Having completed this first wave of marital bonding, My Rogue and I were still talking after ten months! Some observers said we still acted like newlyweds. Reactions to our wedded bliss ranged from smiles on the older, romantic-type friends and relatives to serious, repeated threats of “I’m going to throw up” from a certain younger romantic who shall remain nameless.
Back to suiting our different tastes. I believe interior decorating professionals refer to this exasperating, ultimately futile exercise as Finding Your Style.
His first and only choice was modern or contemporary. More importantly, he regarded blue as the only serious neutral in most if not all situations interior. He wanted nothing to do with bottle green or wallpaper, two favorites of mine and (apparently) his mother’s, which was why he knew emphatically that he didn’t want to live with either anymore, ever again, period.
My tastes ran the sentimental gamut; a few noteworthy heirlooms but, for the most part, more shabby-chic, whimsical, and eclectic. Definitely eclectic; eclectic was a good word that I’d learned to use at a very young age. It described a multitude of sins for living space decors; eclectic was especially liberating when, as a young married, I’d first had to integrate a Wiley E. Coyote poster with an orange and white silk parachute into our small but cozy guest bedroom. I repeat: eclectic is a good, all encompassing word. Learn to embrace it. Some day you’ll thank me.
Accessories; now there is another good word. Some accessories I have kept for years, simply because they belonged to so-in-so and I to this day still don’t know what else to do with them except hold on to them. Slowly, I have learned to rotate items by season, theme, color, month, alphabetical order, holiday, team colors…any rationalization in which I can store the same boxes of junk… er, I mean, accessories, so to bring out other old favorites to enjoy once again.
Much too late, I realized that all this effort was for my benefit only…the new love of my life was not at all enamored with anything too traditional or Victorian or too cutesy or small or too old or outdated or too cheap. Or the Fifties; as my Rogue explained: he’d lived through them; they were no big deal.