Unlearned Kindergarten Lesson #1: Sharing

Living by myself as a graduate student in a foreign country, I'm not called upon to share things very often. Sure, I share my food and my time fairly generously--I suppose my relatively free-handed hospitality usually seems sufficient. But, with my sisters here, I'm reminded that I really, really don't like to share my stuff.

In all fairness, I don't have much stuff here to share. Books, which I would share if they asked. Clothes, which I would share if I had enough sets to make up more than one wardrobe for more than a few days. But my "good-natured-ness" starts to wear off when my sisters want to borrow my nail clippers or hairbrush. And I have no patience for letting anyone else loose on my computer.

It's an interesting way to discover what's really important to me. Even though I've had arguments with my sisters, friends, or even Adam before about the computer, I'm only just not figuring out why. I don't like sharing my nail clippers or hairbrush because they are such personal things. But my laptop is such an intimate thing, an object through which I express myself is so many academic and personal contexts--it really feels like a part of myself.

No wonder, with that unhealthy attitude, that I can't stand anyone else using it. No wonder I feel so vulnerable. What if they break it? What if they somehow change it, make it less useful? It's like I've opened myself up to anyone who uses my machine. For someone who bares parts of her soul to an anonymous (mostly non-existent?) on-line audience, that sentiment is truly ridiculous.

So, I guess it's time to add another goal to the "Things I Wish to Accomplish before I Marry Adam" list: learn to share. It's not going to be a very happy marriage if I don't trust Adam enough to let him use my computer.