Day 163: Please Leave my Kegels Alone, I Have Enough to Worry About

So, I am looking at nine days until my husband is home from Iraq and I’m going to be honest with you, besides the happiness, I am freaking the fuck out. If I have to listen to one more person make some thinly veiled comment about how I pretty start limbering up or working on my kegels, I’m going to lose it. There is a lot of pressure on being reunited with someone after a year-long absence. It’s not just the physical people, though that is strange too, it’s the fact that you are getting to know someone again in a 24/7 way. A daily email or skype conversation is not the same as battling over how to squeeze the toothpaste or which side of the bed to sleep on. We take the living together in relationships for granted and after a year, it’s kind of like inviting your internet boyfriend to move in with you.

You may know one another as people, but the physical togetherness is a whole different story. I have lived alone in my condo for the last year. This is a new home and one that Jeff has never lived in. I suddenly have to share my closets, my dresser, my bathroom space and it feels a bit like I’m making room for a guest. I have that same hospitality hostess quality happening. I don’t really want to move all my shit, but I don’t want him to think he’s not welcome either. So it’s the day-to-day that is preoccupying me more now, but the other is lurking in the back of mind as well.

When you are in a long-term relationship, let’s face it, the sex part is . . . well, it’s familiar. That is in fact, part of what’s comforting. It wasn’t that long ago that I finally stopped sucking in my stomach with Jeff and I still prefer to back out of rooms. I mean come on, I’ve seen my naked ass, I know what’s lurking back there and it’s not my best side. The fact remains that we are married and retain intimate knowledge of one another despite our geographical distance. He’s likely seen me pick my nose – not that I’ve ever done that – and yet, there is this awkward, nervousness surrounding his coming home to live with me again.

So will it make it better? More exciting? Awkward? Who knows the reality his return will cause in our lives. We don’t have kids, which I think are the great normalizers for most people in our situation. It’s difficult to be awkward around one another when you have screaming children to look after. It’s just going to be us, my toned up kegels, a big bed that’s sagging on only one side, and that ass of mine that has been free to come and go as it pleases without worrying how it might look. Lock and load, kids, I’m about to have my first date with my husband and I have no idea how it’s going to turn out. Well, I do know that he’ll still be there in the morning and that’s really the best part.