It hasn’t been all bad. The first couple of days were actually nice. There is a certain feeling of freedom when you suddenly find yourself alone. It begins to occur to you that you can do anything you want at any time you wish to do it. There is a sense of relief that comes when you realize that there is no one to annoy or be annoyed by. If I accidentally leave the refrigerator door open and it begins to emit that hideous high pitched beep, there is nobody here to sigh heavily and flash me an eye-roll. I just go over and shut the door. Was that so hard? If I want to go for a run when its 90 degrees and as humid as a Bangkok sauna outside I don’t have to worry about anyone lecturing me about hydration and the limits of my no longer 30 year old body. If I want to eat a lunch consisting of bacon and cheese I get no negative feedback.
But about Day 3 you start to feel a gnawing loneliness. This isn’t the debilitating loneliness of depression, but rather the frank acknowledgment that you desperately miss the love of your life. You just aren’t the same man when she isn’t here. You’re still you, you’re just not as good.
There are many things you begin to miss. You miss the sound of her. Her footsteps around the house sound different than mine, they are softer, more graceful, the way she flits around is missed when it is no longer there. The sound she makes when she is getting ready in the morning is something that you have become so accustomed to that its absence makes the house feel abandoned. The sound of her voice downstairs when she is talking with a friend on her cellphone. You had no idea what a lovely sound that is until its not there.
You miss the smell of her…when she breezes down the stairs passing you in the living room with her hair wrapped up in a towel after getting out of the shower. When you sit on the sofa a certain way you catch a whiff of the way she smells when she’s cooking dinner. When you walk in the closet to find a clean shirt, her smell is everywhere. You find yourself lingering in there a little longer than you normally do.
You miss hearing her tell you about her day. This daily ritual of every marriage, so easy to overlook, and such a spectacularly ordinary thing, becomes something you would give anything to hear.
You miss having someone you can have an unguarded conversation with. She is the only person in the world who you can speak to without fear. With anyone else there’s the possibility that you will offend or be misunderstood or embarrass yourself. But with her, she gets you, understands your manner of speech, can translate your often nonsensical ramblings into something meaningful.
At night its worse. You have always had trouble sleeping without her. That hasn’t changed. But its not just that, its the nightly rituals you miss. She is a night owl. But sometimes she falls asleep downstairs with the television on and for some unexplained reason, you can tell. So, you miss those times when you walk downstairs, find her sound asleep with schoolwork in her lap. You miss leaning over and kissing her on her forehead, turning the television off and turning out the lights.
On Day 9 you miss her a lot more than you ever have for two reasons. First, you have never been apart for 9 days. Ever. But secondly, she has not had a great week away. There have been difficulties. She is worn out. You can hear it in her voice when she calls. She is dreading the long two day drive home. She is a nervous wreck worrying about all the details. There are many things that could go wrong, and you are helpless to do anything about it.
But, you know one thing for sure—she is a super hero and will rise to the occasion like she always does.
For the next couple of days I will go nowhere without my cell phone. I will volunteer at Hope Thrift to stay busy. I will cut the grass and clean the house, all the while glancing at the clocks on the wall.
I hope that this hasn’t sounded terribly pathetic. I’m a grown man for crying out loud, not some lovestruck newlywed. I just miss her, that’s all.
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