On being alone…
Tonight I’m in “the cottage in Paddock Lake,” which is
actually just a teensy house a few blocks from Paddock Lake. Bud, not Buddy (my
11-ish yr. old gray tiger cat) is snuggled up on the couch with me. I love it
here! I fell in love with this little house the second I came in the door 3
years ago. It has pretty knotty pine walls, a couple nice tall trees in the
yard, song birds, and the lake just down the road. When I walk in I can feel my
blood pressure lower. I sleep better here, I think. There’s more natural light
in the living room here, and the neighborhood is so green with mature trees and
lots of grass. We’ve planted a gorgeous garden where the old nasty shed used to
be, and I can enjoy it while I look out the kitchen window over the sink. Lake
Michigan is less than 20 miles away, less than 30 minutes. Friendly, quiet
neighbors, too. The cottage is full of quirks, things that are crooked or
installed carelessly, or just plain wrong. I call them Joe’s “ah, shits”—at first,
every time he came up he would have to say “ah, shit” about something new he’d
discovered!
When Joe and Luna (our 60 lb. lovable shepherd/lab
retriever/who knows what dog) come to spend the night, it feels like I’m losing
½ of the available space to move and breathe. Our bed is smaller here than at
home, there’s much less floor space, and sometimes I SWEAR there’s less air!
Probably I use it all up sighing my martyr sigh…drama queen!
I love it so much here that I feel guilty sometimes. Aren’t
I supposed to be miserable, missing my husband and other family & friends?
Truth is, it’s harder for me to leave the other 3 animals because I can’t talk
with them on the phone at night and I worry whether they’re eating right,
getting their meds, etc.—the same worries I have for Joe, but him I can nag! J
Of course it’s hard to be away. Every weekend I pack up, go
home, unpack, do laundry, repack, shop, load up, and come back up again. There’s
no time to be normal—it’s hard to do activities without one another when I’m
home, yet it’s unnatural to be that way—we’ve never been an attached at the hip
kind of couple. It’s exhausting sometimes to live in two places. I joke that it’s like that Star Trek, Next
Generation (I think?) episode where the guy was dying because he was going
through the transporter too much. **I think sometimes I have trouble with
re-entry! Maybe I’m like the astronauts, and I need debriefing time before I’m
ready for public consumption. I am the grumpiest right after I get back home.
Poor Joe. Over our 4 school years of doing this we’ve developed some rules and
rhythms, those help. I would never
demand that the kitchen be clean when I get home, but no matter how hard I try
to “be good,” I end up being really snarky when it’s dirty. I make it a
priority to leave it clean, so I expect it to be clean when I get back. Joe has
accepted this and makes it a priority.
We’ve talked and talked about selling our DeKalb home (it’s
going to get its own posting soon). But I love it so, too, and I love my DeKalb
life. Not to mention the fact that it has decreased in value and we cannot
afford to sell it. And so, we continue with this long-distance friendship/partnership/romance/
gas-guzzling, income-eating, two-house payment lifestyle. They’re both
investments, and we’re worth it! (…right?)
