Crisis management

Sitting here next to our perfectly functioning heating vent, and I keep thinking about last month.

Crisis management

Three weeks of freezing mornings, space heaters, and that one terrible night when the temperature dropped to 40 and we basically camped out in the kitchen with the oven door open.

But here’s the thing that keeps hitting me - we never once snapped at each other. Not when Jake had to call the landlord four times. Not when I came home to find him taking apart the thermostat with a screwdriver and zero knowledge of how heating systems work. Not even when we had to sleep in sweatshirts for two straight weeks.

Testing our newly functional heating system

I’ve seen couples fight over way smaller stuff. Carmen and David got into this huge thing last month because he loaded the dishwasher wrong. But when our apartment basically became an icebox, Jake and I just… figured it out together. He researched HVAC systems online while I drafted our tenant rights email. I bought the space heaters while he dealt with the repair scheduling.

Maybe that’s what being domestic partners actually looks like. Not the cute stuff like grocery shopping together or picking out throw pillows. But the 2am problem-solving sessions and the way you can hand each other tools without saying a word because you both want the same outcome: a warm place to call home.