Roommate Wedding Quotes

She hugged me tight, and I hugged her back. I was going to miss her—I knew it. But somehow, I had the feeling that we were going to be okay. I didn’t know what would happen with us. Maybe we’d find a way to attend the same college and be roommates and have the most amazingly decorated dorm room ever. Maybe we’d end up being pen pals, sending lists back and forth. Or we’d just stick to talking twice a week, or we’d video chat, or else just spend all our money traveling to hang out with each other on weekends. I somehow knew that the particulars didn’t matter. She was my heart, she was half of me, and nothing, certainly not a few measly hundred miles, was ever going to change that.

Our separate--and very different--evenings reminded me how far we'd drifted from each other. Our relationship, which at the best of times had felt platonic, now felt like an obstacle to our happiness. I was living with a roommate I had nothing in common with. And I had changed: I barely resembled my former self, the version of me who sought acceptance and security--or was it invisibility?--in a heterosexual marriage.

Michelle’s Note: When I make these at my rented house just off the Macalester campus, I put the rolls in a box and write “FROZEN KIDNEYS FOR HANNAH’S CAT” on the box. So far, none of my roommates, every one of them a cookie hound, has ever opened the box to see what’s inside.

Here’s the deal. When you get married, you become a team. The pastor at your wedding wasn’t joking when he said, “And now you are one.” It’s called unity. The old marriage vows say, “Unto thee I pledge all my worldly goods.” In other words, “I’m all in,” so combine the checking accounts. It’s hard to have unity when you separate your bank accounts. When his money is over here, and her money is over there, it’s easy to live in your own little financial world instead of working as a team. When you do your spending together, it’s about “our” money. We have an income and we have expenses and we have goals. So when you’re both in agreement on where the money is going, then you’ve taken a major step to being on the same page in your marriage, and you will create awesome levels of communication. This all boils down to trust. Do you trust your spouse or not? I’ve heard from people who keep separate bank accounts just in case their spouse leaves them. Well, why on earth would you marry someone you can’t trust? And if that’s really the case, then you need marriage counseling, not separate bank accounts! Your spouse isn’t your roommate, and this isn’t a joint business venture. It’s a marriage! You don’t run your household and your life separately. Your job is to love each other well, and that includes having shared financial goals—which is hard to do when you have separate accounts.

Home. It really was. We’d built a home together, and it had all happened so fast. But all of our routines fell into place, all of our hopes and dreams aligned. All that was left to do was enjoy it.

Yet it could be a pesky little nuisance at times. Making us feel things we didn’t want to, say and do things we’d never planned on.

He didn’t want to get involved, but last night had put him at the front of the line for issues those two needed to work on. Besides, he had some fucked-up idea that if he did the right thing by his roommate, maybe he would deserve Anne a little more.

Where is the shop?” she asked. “South of San Giovanni,” Falco said. “There is a string of palazzos just across the water. Perhaps we can go there?” They weren’t likely to stumble across the masked man just out wandering the streets of the city, and Cass wasn’t even sure she would recognize him; she had seen nothing but the hardness of his eyes. All she’d had was a feeling about him--that something was off, dangerous. She remembered how he’d spoken of the beauty of war. But it meant a long gondola ride with Falco, and with the threat of her wedding looming closer and closer, she was willing to go just about anywhere with him. Before she could agree, the door to the taverna creaked and Falco moved away from her. She whirled around. Paolo’s dark eyes gleamed with amusement. “Signorina. It appears we have a mutual friend,” he said. “You should join us.” “This isn’t really the place for a lady,” Falco said. His voice was light, but contained a bit of an edge. “Something tells me you can protect her, Falco.” Paolo held open the door of the taverna. “I insist. What harm can one drink do?” Falco arched an eyebrow at his roommate. “Fine. One drink. Then Signorina Cassandra and I have some plans of our own.” “I can only imagine.” The tall boy’s eyes glittered like black glass. “I take it I shouldn’t expect you home tonight then.” Heat surged through Cass’s cheeks. She prayed that no one could see her blushing in the dim light.

We took everything we’d learned about the industry and Nest’s potential customers, about demographics and psychographics, and we created two distinct personas. One was a woman and the other a man. The man was into technology, loved his iPhone, was always looking for cool new gadgets. The woman was the decider—she dictated what made it into the house and what got returned. She loved beautiful things, too, but was skeptical of super-new, untested technology. We gave them names and faces. We made a mood board of their home, their kids, their interests, their jobs. We knew what brands they loved and what drove them crazy about their house and how much money they spent on heating bills in the winter. We needed to look through their eyes to understand why the man might pick up the box. And so we could convince the woman to keep it. Over time we added more personas—couples, families, roommates—as we better understood our customers. But in the beginning we started with two—two human beings who everyone could imagine, whose photos they could touch. That’s how prototyping works. It’s how you make abstract concepts into physical representations. You turn your messaging architecture into words and pictures on a box. [See also: Figure 5.4.1, in Chapter 5.4.] You turn “someone in a store” into Beth from Pennsylvania. And then you keep going. Every step of the way, along every link of the chain.

Basically, you’re not alone in there. There are two distinct aspects of your inner being. The first is you, the awareness, the witness, the center of your willful intentions; and the other is that which you watch. The problem is, the part that you watch never shuts up. If you could get rid of that part, even for a moment, the peace and serenity would be the nicest vacation you’ve ever had. Imagine what it would be like if you didn’t have to bring this thing with you everywhere you go. Real spiritual growth is about getting out of this predicament. But first you have to realize that you’ve been locked in there with a maniac. In any situation or circumstance, your roommate could suddenly decide, “I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to talk to this person.” You would immediately feel tense and uncomfortable. Your roommate can ruin anything you’re doing without a moment’s notice. It could ruin your wedding day, or even your wedding night! That part of you can ruin anything and everything, and it generally does.

In the two years we'd been roommates, absolutely nothing had changed.

Syd and Jane had pity on me, but I knew I was being a complete Debbie Downer. Yeah, we’d only been together seven weeks, and I had my whole college career—hell, my whole life—ahead of me. But Lucas was…the one.

As I slid off my coat and pulled a hanger from the closet, I noticed Gracie glaring at me sanctimoniously. Gracie had an uncannily strong drunk detector for a nine-year-old cat, and her you stayed out past curfew face was something to behold. It told me she knew I'd had too much to drink on a Tuesday night and lied to my family about having a boyfriend. It also told me I should have been home to play with her hours ago. "Meow," Gracie lectured. I couldn't even be mad. "I deserve that," I agreed. "Meow," Gracie said again, with feeling. Okay, that was a bridge too far. "Look. I've had a really rough day." Part of me knew it was ridiculous to get into an argument with a cat. The rest of me needed Gracie to understand. Instead of understanding, Gracie chose to jump onto the kitchen counter where Sophie put my mail. Right there, on top of the spring issue of the University of Chicago alumni magazine and the new issue of Cat Fanciers was the wedding invitation Mom had said was coming. I looked helplessly at Gracie, who seemed to have given up on judging my life choices in favor of bathing her right front paw. "I don't want to open it," I told her. Instead of backing me up, Gracie signaled this conversation was over by jumping off the counter and sauntering over to my living room couch. One downside to having a nonhuman roommate was when I needed someone to validate me, I was usually out of luck.

Frederick looked great in the parade of old-fashioned suits I'd seen in since we'd met, of course. More than great. But I realized now that his consistently too-formal, out-of-date attire served as a constant reminder to me that Frederick was out of my league in every imaginable way--- and completely off-limits. Untouchable. And other. Now, though... "What do you think?" he asked. "Do I look like I fit in with modern society now?" With difficulty, I tore my eyes from the broad expanse of his chest now covered in a forest-green Henley that fit him like a glove and met his gaze. He was fidgeting a little as I looked back at him, drumming his fingertips against his upper thigh again, looking at me with a nervous intensity that stole the breath from my lungs. I let my eyes trail slowly down his body, drinking him in, taking in his new shirt and the dark blue jeans that fit him so well you wouldn't have guessed he'd had no idea what size he was twenty minutes ago. The other jeans he'd tried on lay folded in a pile on the chair beside him; his suit hung neatly on a hanger in the dressing room. I focused on these other details to distract myself from how Frederick not only looked just as hot in more casual clothes as he did in his stuffy suits, but also how he now looked attainable in a way that was dangerous to me, specifically. I had to avert my eyes. Looking right at him felt a little too much like looking directly at the sun. "You look great. You look unbelievable, actually." I heard his sharp intake of breath, only then realizing that that hadn't quite been what he'd asked me. All he'd asked was whether he looked like he fit in. My stomach swooped, my face suddenly feeling like it was on fire. Idiot. "That is... that is to say---" "You think I look great?" He was looking at me with an expression that felt somewhere between surprise and pleasure. He stepped from the dressing room, stopping when he was only a few inches away from me. I took an involuntary breath, breathing in the scent of lavender soap and new clothes that clung to him.

Smith had dropped his bag in order to chase baby Mac, who in the short time that we’d been outside with Pam and Tim had decided that the diaper life wasn’t for him anymore. He was tearing around the living room buck naked, his plump little baby buns jiggling for all the world to see. And damn if he didn’t make dimpled butt cheeks look cute. It was a look I wished I could pull off.

I liked that he didn't seem to mind taking things slow. Sometimes we'd read books, my head in his lap as he played with my hair or stroked my head. Jonathan had started to alleviate some of the loneliness I faced on a daily basis, and the time I spent with him highlighted how much better it was to experience things with someone who cared about you in a way that was different from your roommate or family. For years, I'd ordered my hamburgers plain and never entertained the possibility of eating them any other way until Janice gave me one with ketchup, and I realized how much better it tasted. "You're like the ketchup in my life," I'd told Jonathan one night on the phone, and he laughed. "I don't know what that means, exactly, but if it makes you happy, I'm honored to be your condiment." That was another thing I really liked about him. He never made me feel stupid about the weird things that came out of my mouth.