Merge

I have been married for four years and cohabitating for five. My wife and I have bought and raised a puppy together, traveled around the world and integrated with each other’s families. We share a home, a computer, chores, jokes and our deepest, most emotional thoughts.
Through it all, we have had separate CD collections.
This afternoon we had two 9′ tall bookcases installed in our living room. The one on the left has the express purpose of holding music, for despite my embrace of technology–including a first-generation iPod and an extensive MP3 collection–I still maintain a library of 1200 CDs, the majority of which are in our apartment. Amy, to her credit, has a few hundred discs of her own (and also to her credit, she tolerates the sheer bulk of mine).
So it was sensible enough when, as I began carrying music from my old racks to the new bookcase, my wife said, “Let’s keep all our CDs together.”
You’d think we’d have tackled this years ago. After all, we share a common iTunes library, Amy having given up on a her-only subset on her side of the Mac.
But even today, I paused. My collection is going to cheerfully swallow hers. The crazy category system I created, to avoid alphabetizing a thousand CDs, will turn my wife’s Cheryl Crow discs into “female vocal” and her Melissa Etheridge into “rock/alternative.” I suspect Amy will never even attempt to find her music in the sea of CD spines, much less succeed in locating her albums.
And her tastes create confusion in areas I had reconciled on my own. Peter Gabriel? For me: classic rock. To her: “Classic rock? Really?” Where does her Maroon 5 disc go? Seal? Barry Manilow? (Seriously, Amy–Barry Manilow?)
So far I’ve managed to integrate her classic rock with mine (though not, it should be noted, her Peter Gabriel discs), which has already thrown my organization out of whack, as the category has doubled in size. It’s kind of fun. And terrifically nerve-wracking.
My wife and I are deeply connected in our values and desires. We do not share much in the way of musical taste. But somehow, in some way, her Deep Forest and my Kiss CDs are going to find a way to coexist.