A friend was telling me about their struggles with boundaries. Since they have a pool and the neighbor does not, it became an awkward routine. She and her kids swam every afternoon. The neighbor parked himself in a patio chair and watched. What should have been a private place for their family became a reality show.

Frost said that good fences make good neighbors. 

Certainly part of the Marriage Curriculum is learning what is on my side of the line. Do I get to decide what John wears? Or how he eats his pasta? Is it my business where his socks land?

The boundaries get blurry, since we are sharing a living space and a bank account. But the more wrinkles I have the more I aspire to give him elbow room. There is a light in the basement that gets left on frequently. While I have not dusted for prints it seems unlikely that the twins went hunting for a hammer and I know it wasn't me. But I have decided it is best left on the other side of my mental fence. The watts on our bill are less than the annoyance factor I was burning when I stomped down to turn it off for the hundredth time. 

I have not arrived at Frost's snowy woods yet, however. The speakers John brought back from the wedding last month are still in the dining room, and many days an opinion rises to the top of my awareness faster than bubbles in a boiling pot. 

But so is the bag of wood shavings that belongs behind the chicken coop.