For any of you whose spouse travels for work, can I get a “It’s totally awesome and equally totally sucks” high five?! My husband travels for work, about every other week, and this week he’s been gone ALL WEEK. There’s a strange paradox of freedom and loneliness/stress that accompanies a traveling spouse. I don’t know what your list looks like, but when my husband is out of town, these things ALWAYS happen.
1.) Binge Marathon of my favorite shows: This time, it was Gilmore Girls. Episode after episode of he-would-never-put-up-with-this tv watching. I remember being *ahem* “younger”, and staying up until midnight while watching a TV show was a regular thing. Well being married to a Go-To-Bed-Early-To-Wake-Up-Early husband has drastically changed that.
2.) Eat like a teenager: I mean, why cook for JUST ME? Meals usually consist of chicken fingers, Mac & Cheese, or cereal. However this time around, I did manage to cook ONE meal, but that’s because my vegetables were going to go bad and I hate wasting food and money. But he’s been gone ALL week, and I’ve cooked one meal. So, there’s that.
Speaking of meals, these text happen a lot. I mean, really?
3.) The dog is on her worst behavior: I mean, it must be a game. Somehow, she is ALWAYS the biggest poop face in the world when it’s just me to deal with her. Does she think it’s funny? I certainly DO NOT. She won’t go to the bathroom when I take her out, but she WILL go on my carpet. Alright, I get it, the man in charge isn’t here, but can we just be on the same team?! SMH.
4.) Realize how much he does around the house: It’s trash day, and the husband’s not home. The garbage can is pinned between the car and the lawn mower. How does he get that out?! I’m not sure, he’ll have to show me NEXT WEEK. The recycling is pilled high to the ceiling. How am I supposed to put that all out to the curb? It’s delicately balanced against the wall. I realize it’s going to be even worse for him NEXT WEEK. Our grass looks TERRIBLE. Eh, it can wait until NEXT WEEK.
5.) Stay up until midnight: I don’t know why, but I just CAN’T go to bed on time when he’s not here to force me to. It’s SO WEIRD and I don’t even want to stay up that late, but I ALWAYS do.
6.) Take a lot of selfie’s with our dog: For one, he misses BOTH of our faces, obviously. So we must take pictures to remind him of our faces. Also, she’s my closest companion during these times, and we totally bond over pictures. We’re incredibly fond of them. Alright, if we’re being honest(and this extends to the rest of my life), I way too mindful of my narcism to take selfie’s, so I can cushion the impact by also including my dog. Hello, it’s my super cute dog, I just happen to be in the picture WITH HER. You guys, it’s so totally not about me.
7.) “When my husband goes out of town it’s great because I get to catch up on all the loneliness I forgot exists inside of me.” That’s a direct quote from Twitter, and I just can’t word it any better than that.
8.) I DO A LOT MORE THINGS: Realizing that I have the entire evening to myself, no one that I have to talk to/interact with/entertain/feed, I can suddenly do ALL THE THINGS, and I do. I shop here, brunch there, drive there, see this, go do that, then get home to collapse and vegetate. Oh yeah, THAT’S what being single was like.
9.) Sleep freaking beautifully: Despite the fact that I don’t get to bed until midnight, I sleep SO FREAKING GOOD. This deserves a blog post in and of itself, but there’s is nothing ROMANTIC about sharing a bed with a husband that flops like a fish in the middle of the night, or steals your covers or flails his arms on your face. Nothing. So when he’s out of town, it’s a deep breath of relief to know that tonight, I will actually sleep through the night. And my covers will look almost exactly how they did the night before. Also, HOW EASY IT IS to make the bed without a tumbling human. o_O
***I can hear all of the parents rolling their eyes at my absurd lavishness and thinking your “just you wait” thoughts. They’re hitting me all the way over here. It’s all relative people, and someday, I’ll write a blog about how lucky I was to only deal with a floppy fish husband and “if only I had known…” But I DO KNOW, I realize that I am fortunate to get any sleep through the night, and to sleep in past 7 AM, so just let me soak in my naivety, smile and nod, and I’ll catch up to you.
9.) Shower way less often: Before you get grossed out, I shower….but okay, no I don’t really shower. Who am I showering for?! The general public? Ha. NO. The general public doesn’t care if my hair smells like fresh flowers and there’s no one getting closer enough to notice anyway. I’m saving water. Conserving shower supplies. Caring about the planet. Conservation, people.
10.) Desperately clean the house an hour before he gets home: Of COURSE honey, you’ve been gone all this time and it’s given me so much time to just clean and tidy up and no way were my clothes strewn all over the couch, and sure I folded and put away the laundry as soon as I washed it. Is it wrinkled? It must be the fabric, it definitely did not sit in the dryer for three days and get run on three different cycles. Nope, not that.
WELCOME HOME.
After sight-seeing around the South Rim, we took our rickety RV over to the North Rim and up some very rugged not-made-for-an-RV-roads. It was deafening and terrifying and awesome. I’m not sure if we were frightened or entertained or some strange concoction of both, but if you would have told us that wouldn’t be the roughest trail of our trip, I don’t think we would have believed you.
