Ken left today for a 10-day trip: He’s being the most
fucking amazing husband in the world and flying to upstate NY to drive my
mother to SC, where she winters, with a detour in GA to visit my sister. It’s
rather above and beyond for him to take care of my family, and it’s one of the
things that still makes me catch my breath.
Initially we both planned to go; we’d rather be together
than apart, and we could share the driving, etc. But finally we took a long,
hard look at the cost (it’s not cheap to fly to upstate NY nor from SC), and
realized only one of us should go. It makes logical sense that it would be him,
since he can drive at night, and knows how to do two years’ worth of my mom’s
filing (because he set up her filing system), and I have a lot of work to do
whereas he’s in a slow period work-wise. I still feel a bit guilty, but I know
it makes sense.
I hate it when he’s away—no matter the reason—and it always
takes me a little while to come to terms with the differences. I’m slowly
learning to schedule time with friends so I don’t become to hermit-like; I’m
learning even more slowly how to schedule my day, with no one else to work
around (“When do you want dinner?” and so forth).
Sometimes, I’ll put his pillow in the closet and sleep in
the middle of the bed. I do that to make more room for the cats, who want to
sleep between me and my side of the bed. But Eostre’s in a stage of not coming
onto the bed—she’s loving what I’d planned to be my office chair—so maybe I
won’t. But I did roll out of bed this morning on Ken’s side, which for some
reason I don’t do when he’s home but has gotten up before me. I don’t know why.
We have a bad habit of eating in front of the TV (our coffee
table flips up flat to become the right height for eating or working or whatever),
and when we’re eating, we each prop a pillow behind our back because the sofa
is a little deep. His pillow’s sitting there on his side, and I can’t bring
myself to move it yet. (What is it with me and pillows?)
His napkin’s sitting on the coffee table, too—he won’t use
it for another week and a half, and maybe I’ll wash it if I do a load of light
laundry—and so is a paper towel, because he drives me nuts by using paper
towels instead of plates, scattering crumbs as he goes. Which reminds me, I need
to sweep and mop the kitchen; there are bits of brownie bites ground into the
linoleum. (Sigh.)
The house ends up cleaner when he’s gone, because he’s not
leaving his shoes everywhere or smearing peanut butter on all available
surfaces (counter, refrigerator handle, cabinet handle, the kitchen sink faucet for crying out loud). When I tell him it’s
like living with a 6-year-old, he says “Nuh-uh! Is not!” Then again, he’s been doing
most of the dishes lately, and he generally handles the cat boxes and the trash
and we share the cooking…. A Catch-22.
I miss him. I feel adrift. The first day, and the first
night, are always the hardest.
