Day 173: You Don't Have to Talk Dirty to me, Just Talk

I have spoken more in the last 24 hours than I have in a month. At a time when people seem to think my life should be filled solely with passion and meaningful glances, I find that what is really getting me off, is conversation. Don’t get me wrong, passion is great, but when you’ve lived without your partner for a year and have limited contact with companions other than a cat, talking is oh-so-good.

We don’t realize how much we need social interaction on a daily basis until we don’t have it. Sure, I have friends, I go out here and there, but most of my time is spent alone with my cat and no matter how much I talk to her – and it’s probably more than is advisable – she never seems to be listening. Having my partner back, the person who knows me better than anyone else in the world, highlighted what I’d been missing: conversation. I’m sure that after a year in a combat zone and four days of traveling what he really wanted was a shower and relaxation, but I have been unable to shut up since the first kiss.

Without dialogue, a part of who we are is missing. It’s one thing to be alone, I like my alone time and I need a lot of it, but I also need conversation. Talking to my other personalities doesn’t seem to do the trick and now that I have Jeff all to myself for 24 hours I realize why, we don’t just need to talk. We need eye contact, we need an acknowledgment from someone else in the world that we exist and that they hear us. After living in a big city for years I came to believe that many of the street people we think of as “crazy” are just suffering the effects of years without anyone treating them like a human. When was the last time you made eye contact with a homeless person or said anything to them other than, “no” or “here you go”? We would all be mumbling to ourselves after a year or more of that.

I feel like I’ve been saving up most of my normal conversational skills and topics for a year and now the dam has been opened. Hopefully for Jeff’s sake, I will eventually slow my role to a trickle and give him the peace he likely needs. For now, however, he seems perfectly content to let me talk and talk and talk and sometimes I even pause long enough for him to respond. Dialoguing is fun.

Day 172: A Moment of Peace

In honor of today being the day my husband came back from a year-long deployment I am going to pass on today’s blog. Well sort of. In a way, my ability to put away my laptop without fully writing what I intended to put down today says something about my emotional and mental growth. I still have that vague sense of unease that has plagued me for so long, but for one night I’m going to ignore it and try to go to bed peacefully, without the thoughts and doubts swirling in my head. My life is far from perfect, I still have much work to do on myself as I think many of us do, but maybe it’s okay to take a night off once in a while, even if it is just to pretend that things are fine. As I write this my husband is quickly drifting off to sleep next to me in the bed he’s only slept in a handful of times. Even so, he looks like he belongs there and I beside him. Life may not be perfect, but I’m going to grab whatever handful of it I can while it’s there, because you never know when your version of perfection might blow up in your face.

Day 171: If we Keep Losing, Why do we Keep Trying?

Do you ever stop to think about how much loss we all suffer throughout the course of our lives? I’ve lost several romantic relationships, two friendships – one I deserved to lose because I was a bitter and selfish friend, while she always supported me and the other I lost because we couldn’t recover from the fact that we are very different people. I’ve also lost people close to me due to death. My Mother died nine years ago and all of my grandparents are gone except for my Grams, who will likely outlive us all. I’ve lost a couple of pets, most recently my cat Jeremy, who I had for almost 15 years and I still dream about, like a hug from my subconscious. I’ve lost jobs I wanted to keep, articles of clothing that just disappeared, geographical places I was lucky enough to call home and then had to leave. We lose competitions, bets, awards, and debates. So I ask you, do we lose more than we win?

How many wins have you had? If we do lose more than we win or even if we just lose a lot, what keeps us going, knowing how much loss there is yet waiting on us? There will always be death, there will always be sickness, there will always be relationships that fade or do not work out; loss is all around us. It is the one thing you can absolutely count on to continue, whereas the wins, maybe not so much. People do not have to give birth or may be sterile, but they will die. You may not get your raise, win that football game, the award for which you are nominated or the Pulitzer, but you’ll definitely suffer setbacks. No one’s life is golden forever and yet for the most part we’re pretty optimistic as a people. We keep struggling through despite numerous attempts at love that fail, family members and friends that die, jobs that don’t work out. It’s easier to gain weight than to lose it – that’s a reverse loss – in that case it’s like golf, you want the lower score. I don’t know where the optimism comes from.

The world is an incredibly ugly place if you look at it too closely. Death, suffering, racism, sexism, torture, genocide, rape, murder, betrayal, extreme poverty, starvation – these things are happening in this big, beautiful, blue-green world right now. At the same moment that you’re lifting your face to catch the breeze, closing your eyes to better hear the leaves in the trees rustle ever so gently as the wind moves through and you smell the clean, ripe greenness of spring or the heady, salty summer scent, at that same moment someone else is suffering. Yes, I see the beauty; I am hypnotized by the world’s beauty. I love the breeze, the ocean, the sharp, icy sting of winter’s breath. I also recognize that at the same moment I am enjoying it, someone else is at war, someone’s family is being slaughtered; someone’s father, or brother, or mother is being viciously attacked just because of their sexual orientation or their race.

There is a lot of negative in the world, a lot of pain. Yet we get up every day thinking this is the day things will get better, this is the day things will turn around or if things are going well for you, you get up and think things will continue to go well. We don’t see the bad coming, we don’t look for it or expect it, so it’s always a surprise when the layoff comes, the illness sidelines us or the accident rips a hole in our life, creating a void so deep we don’t know how to fill it.

Maybe loss isn’t the only guarantee. No matter how bad the hurt and loss is, the other guarantee is that you will get up the next morning. You will get up; you will face the world; you will keep breathing in and out and you will go about you business knowing that the pain will fade eventually if you can just live through it long enough. Maybe our optimistic spirit is the only true guarantee, the fact that we keep fighting, even against what seem to be insurmountable odds. It doesn’t matter how much money you have or how many friends or how many toys, you will die. You will lose the ultimate fight. Still, we get up each day with as much of a smile as we can muster. That is amazing. I think I was wrong, it’s not loss that is eternal, the human spirit is the one thing that’s a guarantee. So keep fighting, there’s happiness yet.

Day 170: These are a Few of my Favorite Things

Mashed potatoes are my most favorite food to eat in the culinary world. I realize they aren’t exactly haute cuisine, but I love them and the comfort I find in their creamy goodness. Lilac reminds me of my Mother and its scent brings me close to her. Christmas is my favorite holiday, no offense to Kwanza or Chanukah, I’m not a Christian so I only celebrate it as a secular holiday. All of these favorites also bring me comfort and a certain sense of security. Why are our favorites, favorites and why do things we love tend to transcend beyond simple preferences and to bring us comfort?

Comfort evokes different things for people. I did not have an exceptionally happy childhood past the age of 10 or so, but all three of my favorites do originate from home and my Mother. For instance, in our house Christmas meant every room was decorated, a dozen different types of cookies, candies and breads were baked and aromas of pine, cinnamon, and berry were evidenced throughout the house. I remember being very happy as a young girl and these things epitomized my life at that time. So the comfort comes from primarily my Mother and that insulated feeling of safety parents give their children. Not too much later all that would be blown apart, but there was a nice time there for a while when life seemed pretty good and our little house, hearty fare and the lilac bush outside my Mother’s window was all I needed to feel happy.

As we grow and change it is natural that our favorites also evolve. What makes us happy and comforted may not be associated with a childhood memory, but perhaps a memory of our travels or a special event. There are some tastes that when I close my eyes I am back in the city or sitting in a piazza in Madrid. These are great memories, but for me the ultimate's are still those happy years with my Mother and that little house where I grew up. Comfort and favorite things go hand in hand often because they originate from the same thing. Mom was home to me, wherever I go as an adult she is firmly rooted within me and my favorite things are enmeshed with the memory of her.

I guess my point, is that my favorite things bring me comfort because they relate to the person in my life that was the most comforting. Not everyone has a great childhood or supportive parents, but hopefully there is that safe, warm place for all of us and somewhere inside of that there is likely to be a favorite. So while my mashed potato fetish clashes a bit with my cosmopolitan palate, it’s more about my state of mind when I ate them as a young child. Lilac bushes, farm-worthy dinners and festive holiday celebrations still influence me to this day. The world is a big place and I have traveled all across it, but to this day, give me a merry Christmas or a big bowl of buttery mashed potatoes and the world doesn’t need to be any bigger than my immediate happy state can grasp.

Day 169: I Think I Need a Wife

I am attempting to flex my domestic muscles and am finding that they don’t really exist. I guess it’s true that if you do not work out your muscles regularly they will atrophy. Last week I cleaned my entire apartment top to bottom including organizing all dressers, closets, etc. Today I sat down with a ambitious plan to sort through cookbooks and recipes and to make a weekly meal plan for at least the first two weeks after the husband is home. After several hours of noting recipes, the only progress I’ve made is to clean out much of my fridge (recipes make you hungry) and to obliterate the previously clean and organized living room.

I’m not sure how those of you who cook regularly manage. Planning is something I love to do, but when it comes to eating, I’m a primitive creature (see Blog 1??) and prefer to eat what I’m craving not what was planned out a week earlier. Besides that, how do you shop for a week at a time? How do you keep your plan, ingredients and recipes organized? None of this makes sense to me. I like to shop on a daily basis and make whatever is fresh. The problem with that is that fresh ingredients are pricey and markets in suburban cities do not sell small portions of ingredients. I go to the store, buy groceries to cook for one or two meals, then most of it goes bad because I’m not cooking for a family, I’m cooking for me or me plus one.

Maybe I don’t have the domestic gene. My Mother was a obsessive cleaner and cook, but she had a stable of recipes she tended to rotate every couple of weeks. I prefer to utilize one of my hundred cookbooks for new and interesting meals, but interesting requires specialized ingredients and specialized does not lend itself to multiple meals. More than anything, I’m just not that enamored with the fact that you have to keep doing these things over and over again. I mean I cleaned. I deep cleaned and organized and now, a few days later it needs to be cleaned again. You cook and do the dishes and clean up your mess and then the next night you’re hungry again and the process starts all over.

I’m a good dialer. I like to order take out and when I lived in the city, everyplace delivers. You can get McDonald’s, pot, liquor, and a gourmet meal right to your doorstep. I never ordered the first two, so that was kind of a waste, but it’s comforting to know it’s available. At 36 I keep waiting on the desire to keep a clean house and cook on a daily basis to hit me, but I just don’t think it’s going to. I wonder if most people do these things solely because they have kids? Maybe if I had little creatures that needed cleanliness and nutritious home-cooked meals I’d be less inclined to ignore the clutter and eat on the fly. Guess I’ll never find out, because I have a firm “no creature” policy in my place. Tomorrow I’m ordering sushi, stupid kids can’t even eat raw fish, what’s their problem anyway?

Day 168: All About Ame - Where's Bette Davis When I Need Her

I am at four days until the night when my year-long deployed husband will once again be home. I have written several blogs on topics ranging from negotiating the loneliness, strangeness, happiness, and concerns. Today I freaked out for a whole new reason: what if I miss being on my own? I love Jeff, but it was difficult going from a 24/7 relationship to basically living like I’m single again. Now, after a year of adjustment, some of which was really hard to get through, I’ve found a good balance and am almost happy. So what happens when you go from being alone to having a live-in partner overnight?

Some of the issues are functional. I sleep in a big, wonderfully comfortable king-size bed. I love my bed. I bought it when I moved here and aside from a weekend, Jeff hasn’t slept in it. This is my bed and I don’t have a side. I sleep kind of sprawled all over and I like that. Suddenly I’m going to be restricted from my insomnia driven flailing about and frequent periods of turning the light back on to read or work on the laptop. This is not a huge problem, I realize, but it is an adjustment. There are other, not life shattering, issues like cooking. We like different foods and I don’t really need meat, so either we cook two meals or go out to eat all the time.

Lastly, there’s just the basic and unavoidable fact that I like to be alone. True, a year of alone time is a bit much even for me, but I live in a condo there’s only one main living space and we’re going to be in each other’s face whenever we’re both home. You may think that’s normal and fine, but I’m used to doing what I want, how I want and exactly when I want. I don’t want to have a coffee pot cluttering up the counter or someone waking me up bright and early when I just fell asleep at 5:30am.

I have built a life for myself over the last year and it was a struggle and it wasn’t my choice, but I did and I’m liking what I have. What I don’t have, however, is my husband and I want and miss him in my daily life. I never want him to feel like I am simply accommodating him. I’m just not sure how to go from living alone to being bosom buddies again and I’m a little worried that it’s going to show. What happens when my normal Sunday night drink at Mac’s clashes with coupledom?

Don’t get me wrong, I am more excited and happy than anything, but I’d be lying if I said these things aren’t on my mind. We can’t predict how are relationships will unfold, but I’ve been here before with this same man four years ago. We moved in together and it was wonderful, but back then we didn’t have the year-long break beforehand. We knew each other’s habits and schedules. My life has changed and he’s been through a war. How the fuck do you adjust to that over coffee? In the words of the immortal Bette Davis's Margo Channing, “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.”