OdiAmo

When attempting to describe my relationship with Lucas I always find myself reaching back for an expression I learned during my High School Latinl: Odi et Amo. I hate and I love.
I met Lucas the summer I turned sixteen and back then I had nothing but Amo for him. I was head over heels in Amo. I was up to my neck in Amo. It was Amo city. Nothing but Amo as far as the eye could see. That was five years ago, and to be honest I’m running out of Amo.
Not to say I don’t still have Amo for the kid. I do, and for the same reasons I Amo’ed back then. I Amo his obsession with horror movies, his affinity for PB&J sandwiches, how he always sneezes in pairs and his seemingly infinite supply of rugby shirts. These things have remained constants throughout our admittedly dramatic, bipolar, tumultuous off-and-on courtship.
And the longer I know him the list of things I Amo grows steadily. He gives the most incredibly thoughtful and original presents. He is the best listener I’ve ever met. He cooks when he’s stressed out and does push-ups when he’s restless.
And yet I have another list that is also steadily growing in size the longer I have known him. The list of his quirks habits and personality traits that are slowly driving me crazy.
He taps his left eyebrow when I say something stupid. He has this fake, throaty laugh that sets my teeth on edge. He calls me ‘toots’ in public. He eats cookies by first nibbling around the edges and making two large bites of the middle. He wakes me up when I fall asleep while we’re watching movies. These are the little things that Odi and I have no idea when I started noticing these little habits and even less of an idea of when I started hating them or even why they bother me as much as they do.
And then there are of course the big things I Odi. The things that keep me up an night because I struggle move past them. He doesn’t like hiking. Or skiing. He’d rather sit at the lodge or wait at the camp for me while I conquer terrains all by myself. I can't remember him ever being spontaneous. He used to aspire to be a filmmaker, now he wants to be a dentist. Odi, Odi, Odi.
So I have spent half a decade compiling Odi/Amo lists in my head to the point where it has become an obsession. When I am with him I can’t seem to stop categorizing these things into conscious lists of pros and cons, things I love and things I hate and things that, oddly enough, fit into both categories.
When I went to visit him recently.
I wake up early and start reading in his living room. He emerges, hours later with his hair disheveled and glasses askew; Amo. He asks me what I’m reading despite the fact that I’m mid sentence and just saw him read the cover; Odi. He collapses on the couch and puts his head in my lap; Amo. He turns on the TV to some stupid music countdown show without even asking me if I would mind (Hello, I’m reading! And I probably wouldn’t even have minded, but it would have been nice if he had asked); Odi. He offers to make pancakes and accepts my offer to help; Amo. I somehow wind up washing the pan he forgot to clean last night; Odi. His fingers graze my waist as he reaches for something over my head; Amo. He ignores my suggestion that the pancakes need to be flipped and burns them...twice; Odi. He takes out a bag of M&Ms for me because he knows I’m sick of blueberries without my having to tell him; Amo. He sticks the batter bowl in the sink and says ‘Will you wash this too?’; Odi.
I’m sure that without hesitation he could immediately name a list of things I do that drive him crazy and I’m sure that it is not a short list. That’s what happens when you’re with someone for a long time, I figure. But it’s getting to the point where the battle between Odi and Amo is starting to get about equal. It’s like a game of tug of war where the two teams are so evenly matched that the red bandana that marks the middle of the rope is completely stationary as the two teams pull with all their might. It has been five years, neither team is relenting and I’m standing in the middle next to that red bandana not sure which side I’m rooting for.