Kerry Forward
The unexamined life is not worth living. -Socrates
My husband just left for the week. He’s in a car with three women en route to Mackinac Island for the most pointless conference you could imagine. He’ll be working Sunday through Saturday, including Memorial Day, around the clock to make sure nothing breaks. It’s funny, the way it makes me feel when he and I are forced to be apart. It’s complete nonsense. I have everything I could ever need or want to be comfortable. I have absolute freedom to do anything I could ever want to do. If I wanted to, I could take a trip for the week by myself to recharge or relax. But all I feel is heartache from missing him. I’m never excited for the time to myself. I want solitude on my terms only.
When he and I are together, and this is every single day, we are comfortable to the point where neither one of us behaves any differently from how we would if we were by ourselves. I say this, but I know that he keeps my preferences in mind. He lets me choose what we watch on TV every night. He cleans up after dinner and he makes our lunches in the mornings. He keeps the yard looking tidy and the grass groomed. He takes the trash out and sweeps the floor and cleans the kitty litter. But most nights, we behave as we did before we were ever together, which more or less means that we sit at our computers reading about things we find interesting. Sometimes if he laughs aloud I’ll say “What?” and he’ll share what he’s looking at, which is sometimes funny videos of corgis or cats doing goofy things. He likes funny animal videos a whole lot. More than the average grown up man, I’d say. But that is part of why I love him.
His being gone gives me a feeling of panic. It’s an unhealthy dependency, I know. It’s because I feel control fleeing away from me. The predictability of my everyday life is gone. My comfort and my caregiver left me. What will I do without him? I don’t know. I can’t even think. It is grief. I am worse than sad. I feel lonely and left out. It’s shameful. Insecure.
I feel worse because I feel so bad and it’s childish and I know it. I am the spoiled baby here, and that’s not my best self and I don’t like it.
We had a good couple nights before he left. We knew we’d want to make the most of our time together before this morning when he had to go away. He is so cuddly. He is always warm. He smells like men’s deodorant and hair gel and shaving cream. He feels like safety and home.
If I think back and try to remember what it was I used to do that would make me happy, before I got lost in my 7 to 6 daily grind (oh God that’s depressing), I would say it was creating things. I no longer paint, draw, or make cards or presents for people. I don’t write poetry anymore, ever. I don’t write stories. I don’t write long letters to people that I mail to them in intricately decorated envelopes. I don’t try to write songs anymore. I don’t create websites. I don’t even blog. I don’t make music singing in a choir or playing an instrument in a band, I don’t move my body, I don’t put together fashion creatively, I don’t do anything alone or with a group that makes art happen, I just come home from work and get tired. It’s no wonder I’m not my old self. I used to do all of these things.
I also used to consume art that I don’t anymore. I always sought out music that said something to me. I read literature that got me excited, and then I read articles about that literature to learn more. I saw every movie I could. I saw every concert I could. I read poems and went to poetry readings. I went to plays. I was hungry for all of it. All of this meant something to me.
I think if I could get my old self back, I would be happy. So there are some things I should do while my husband is away this week. If I were to make a list of things I’d like to do, somewhere in my mind, realistic or not, that list may include:
and others. So that’s a list to start off with of how I’ll spend my week. What will probably happen is I’ll probably find a TV series on demand or on Amazon Prime that I’ll sit and watch the entire thing of, which will pass the time but make me feel like a lump, and that will NOT make me happy. So I’d like to get 10 things done off this list. Yes, that will be my goal. I can do it.
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