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"  How do you fight? Dustin doesn&amp;#039;t like conflict. When anything that smells like an &amp;quot;issue&amp;quot; surfaces, he&amp;#039;s quick to quash it. If I&amp;#039;m in the same room, he&amp;#039;ll use his body. He&amp;#039;ll squeeze me in a really hard hug or wrap his endless legs around me and that shuts me down. When he doesn&amp;#039;t have me physically present, it&amp;#039;s trickier for him, but he&amp;#039;ll reason with me for a bit, tell me I&amp;#039;m a detective of bad things, then assure me that we&amp;#039;ll finish talking about it later. That usually works on me too, but both are temporary fixes. Me, I go quiet. I won&amp;#039;t talk to you about why I&amp;#039;m upset, but you&amp;#039;ll know something&amp;#039;s up. So you&amp;#039;ll ask me what&amp;#039;s wrong, and I&amp;#039;ll insist it&amp;#039;s nothing (need time to digest my rage before I can explain what&amp;#039;s the matter). I&amp;#039;ll try to stay la-di-da on the outside and yet I&amp;#039;ll grow increasingly grumpy and hardheaded about my misery right underneath. Being on the receiving end of my anger is like being tortured by a mime who is terrible at miming. I was doing this to Dustin recently when he told me he wanted to go to Target. Target is one of my favorite places in the universe. It&amp;#039;s because I grew up in the suburbs. Target smells like popcorn and hot dogs and speaks to me of my extraordinary power and privilege as a consumer. If I want to buy a frozen pizza and a lamp and some socks and a flat-screen at the same time, so help me, I will get them all from a store that feels the same no matter which one you&amp;#039;re in. And what do you know, Dustin loves Target too. I used up a lot of energy suppressing my joy on that trip, our first time at Target together. He stumbled upon these rare cans of tea that he really likes. He was so thrilled it was like he&amp;#039;d won some kind of game show, but he had to have his party by himself. I watched while he filled his basket with way too many cans, when on any other (non-mad) day I would have joined him in geeking out. Multiple events\u2014both recent and historic\u2014had brought me to this heightened state in which I had to stubbornly prove to him how mad (but not mad) I was. I was feeling everything: resentment, anger, sadness, disappointment, confusion, and panic about the fact that what had seemed perfect for so long was finally coming down from the clouds. That makeup-free look is not pretty. It&amp;#039;s cold now, almost officially winter, and Dustin had to stop before we left Target to zip up his jacket. Out of nowhere, Dustin, who is quiet all the time, said, &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s an entire bushel of bananas being eaten behind you.&amp;quot; Normally, words like that would&amp;#039;ve made me snap my head to find said bananas and stare at them, but instead I did nothing. I didn&amp;#039;t turn around. I didn&amp;#039;t ask him what he was talking about, stop being weird. I just stood there. My forced indifference did nothing to faze him. &amp;quot;There are so many bananas out right now,&amp;quot; he said with wonder. &amp;quot;They might be a banana-eating troupe.&amp;quot; We turned toward the door and I saw that he was right: A cluster of four little girls and their mother, all holding bright yellow bananas, were munching in unison, peels flopping down, the troupe oblivious to how cute it looked. I wanted to laugh, but I didn&amp;#039;t. When we got outside, snow was falling. The first snow of the season. Having grown up in perpetual sunshine, I think snow looks like polar bear sparkles mixed with Dippin&amp;#039; Dots floating through the sky. It makes me feel childlike and giddy. Same for him. &amp;quot;Can you believe it&amp;#039;s snowing?&amp;quot; he said, and still I gave him nothing. Tough to be happy when you&amp;#039;re trying so hard to be mad. As we walked, and the snow was coming down like disappearing powdered sugar, it finally dawned on me that whatever injustice I felt was nothing compared to the consequences of my own destruction. What would I do if the balance of our days together were bitter ones, if I went to bed without his arms on either side of me, if I woke up one day and he was gone? It took a few blocks, but I finally copped to it. &amp;quot;I wasn&amp;#039;t being honest earlier,&amp;quot; I said. &amp;quot;I love the first snow.&amp;quot;  Read  Helin&amp;#039;s earlier  &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m With Him&amp;quot; columns here, here, and  here. Photo credit: Alyssa Recht "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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