It started a few years ago — she gave me a key to her house. Just the knob for the front door, the deadbolt is keyed differently, so if she wanted to keep me out, she could just throw the bolt. For awhile I kept it on a separate keyring which I would grab if I knew I needed to get into her house, but it eventually ended up on my keyring.
She gave me the deadbolt key after too times ringing the bell and calling her cell phone in the middle of the night, rousing her out of bed to get her to unbolt the door; it turned out that the only times she wanted to keep me out were times I didn’t want to see her anyhow. I put that key on my ring behind the knob key — my house keys and hers clipped side by side.
We work right next door to each other, so it only makes sense that we carpool… a lot. Even before I found myself sleeping at her house more often than my own, even before I moved my stuff into her house, it seemed I was driving her car as much as my own. So, she gave me her spare car key.
Of course, driving in together often meant that I would help her open her shop. It just made sense to put a spare salon key on the same ring as the car key. And while I didn’t put the bulky car key or shop key on my keyring, it seemed I’d grab that set of keys every day.
Last week we went car shopping — the lease was up on her old car, and I’ve been without a car for most of the last year, so we got something sensible (if you call a $40,000 luxury crossover “sensible”). It’s in her name, but we both picked it out and I’m pitching in on it. So the new car key went on my keyring, along with the spare salon key.
Maybe it’s the hopeless romantic in me, but when I grabbed my keys this morning and realized how many keys are to her stuff I got this warm feeling… You can meet someone, fall in love, run to Vegas and get married, but you still have keys to your stuff and she has keys to her stuff. We’re good at keeping some things locked, but if you’re lucky, one day you find your keyring filled with the keys to your life together.
