Commuter Marriage Confessional: On Being Alone

My husband left a few days ago for a 10-day trip to India. When he returns, he'll be back for a few days and then gone again for a few weeks. Nearly everyone I tell this to asks me one single question: How do you feel about him being gone like that?

In the beginning of his traveling, I hated it. I think there have been numerous blog posts about how much I didn't like it. There was the loneliness aspect of it; the co-parenting aspect of it; the 'what was the point of getting married if I'm alone' aspect of it. All of that still rumbles around in my head although nowhere near as loudly as before.

We're going on the fourth year of this arrangement and I've grown used to life as a commuter wife.

I think I'm alone now

Something I'm very proud of about myself is that I can handle being alone. I was an only child until I turned 18 and even then, there was an element of alone-ness as I went from only child to older sister. While my mom  was in pre-term labor with my brother and sister (at her 29th week), I was at home with pneumonia so bad I almost had to be hospitalized... twice. My stepdad was at the hospital with my mom, which left me at home somewhat alone. I should add that the hospital was a good 45-mile trip one way and this was Chicago....in the Winter.

I have vivid memories of driving myself to the doctor for my initial diagnosis only to find out that my fever was .3 degrees away from hospitalization. I also remember the medicine-induced projectile vomiting that was so bad, the doctor told me -- and my mom, who was in labor 45 miles away -- that if I couldn't keep anything in for another 24 hours, I would be hospitalized. All of this went on while my mom and stepdad were at another hospital trying to bring my brother and sister into the world. The story has become a bit of lore for my now-18 year old sister, who loves to hear what we all went through to bring her and her brother into the world. 

Don't even get me started on my 18th birthday. This was my absolute worst birthday ever and it involved me spending it -- you guessed it -- alone*. 

College was spent with more alone time, followed by those years in my 20s where I reveled in the sanctuary that was my one-person studio apartment. 

Love + Marriage

When I met and married my husband and brought his two kids into my life, I worried about the impact that would have on my previously solitary life. I wasn't so nervous about my stepkids as I was about my husband. I'd never really had to answer to anyone before and here I was shacking up with a guy. Thanks to my brother and sister, I could handle the complexities of childhood. 

Marriage is what caught me off guard. I had to figure out how to live with someone that was something of an equal to me...and I found that somewhat difficult.

Just as I felt like I'd finally acclimated to life as a couple, my husband's career took off. Specifically, the plane carrying him to different places every week took off and I was back at home, alone....again. 

It took me a few years to get regain footing as an alone-person, but I think I've figured it out again. 

What I've learned from my life as a commuter wife

The Commuter Wifestyle takes some getting used to. You don't just decide one day to have a commuter marriage and go about your merry way. In some ways, the commuter marriage has helped me in other areas of my life, such as: 

• Don't be afraid of who you are. If anything, being a commuter wife has helped me realize who I really am and what I'm all about. I spent an inordinate amount of time by myself and am able to fully grasp what makes me tick...and what ticks me off. 
• Don't be afraid to go at it alone. If I want to do something -- be it a class, a movie, a meal -- I will go by myself if I really want it. Similarly, if no one else agrees with me on something in the house, I'm perfectly okay to suck it up and do it by myself. 
• Don't be afraid to try new things. I've rehabbed entire sections of our house, taken up painting and now have a green belt in Karate all in the 3ish years my husband and I have had the commuter life. I also stepped back from involved parenting and started reading a lot more. I think these have been the happiest years of my life because I've tried things I didn't think were possible before I remembered how wonderful being by myself felt. 

*my parents were not mean people, they just had more pressing things to attend to, like my brother and sister were still in hospitals and my mother's godmother had died right before my birthday and her funeral was held on the same day as my birthday. 

What do you love about being alone? Any behaviors you take part in when it's just you and an empty house?

Dear 36 year old self

Congratulations. We made it to 36 years old. Granted, our birthday was over a month ago, but it should come as no surprise that it's taken this long to write something because, after all, our brain has become a the land where thoughts get lost.

That picture to the right? That's us. Today. The day after we colored our hair, wore the right amount of make-up and wore the pretty orange dress. We should remember this day for a while because a lot of people told us we looked pretty today. It felt great to hear someone say that to us because most of what we've thought about ourself lately is how frumpy and dumpy we've felt we looked.

This other picture? That was the 'before' of our hair. Notice the wiry gray things popping out? Those are 'old lady' hairs and we don't like those. We much prefer the more pulled together look we created today. The old lady hairs remind us that we are, in fact, getting old.

Let's talk about getting old. Our glasses, which we thought made us  look cool in high school -- even though they were fake -- are now a necessity. Our husband loves us in glasses (which we can't really figure out but will gladly accept) which is good because we've reached the age where we need them... for everything. We can no longer go to the grocery store without needing the glasses to look for the name of the soup we hope to buy.

Speaking of stores, let's talk about how we created this look today. We used a  #75 hair gray covering hair dye, Neutrogena Berry Fit lip gloss and Physicians Formula Mineral Wear Kit Flawless Complexion Kit 1 kit. Congratulations. It's only taken us about 25 years to figure out what makeup works well on us.

Can we talk about our body? Nah. Let's not. We've got a love thing going on. Let's not ruin it with self-loathing brought on by our bum knee and turned out ankles.

Let's instead talk about observations. Have you noticed how much time we spend on Pinterest and how much we resisted even joining the site? Let's admit, the site has been inspirational. Heck, we even learned how to do pretty up-do's with our hair. Even better, we found the inspiration which prompted the motivation to fix up the home office. It does look nice, doesn't it?

What else has been going on?

We'd remember what else has been going on in our life except right around our birthday, our memory went to hell. Actually, our memory started failing us soon after our tonsillectomy last year and sped up with the memory lapses upon our 36th birthday.

We're struggling with getting older. There are certain things to love about it such as maturity and wisdom, but  we're not always quick to remember those tenets of middle age.

Middle. Age.

How did we get here? Don't you remember being 16 and loving to hate the world? Do you remember how every relationship seemed like it was the most important thing in the world? Do you remember how confusing it was to be a teen-ager? We had rules to live by and no sense of real direction about where our life was going to take us. We wanted to explore and see the world yet we had no idea how we'd get there. Thankfully, we're able to tell that 16 year old self that we do, in fact, get to travel. But that's fodder for another letter.

Well, dear 36 year old self. Getting older means needing more rest. Never mind that it's 9:30 on a Tuesday and that 10 years ago you'd just be setting out to go on a date (case in point: the man you married). Time to settle in with your fuzzy socks, hand cream and a good book and nod off to sleep.

Sweet dreams....

Circle of Moms Top 25 Moms with Blended Families: A vote for me is a vote for you

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

I just found out I was nominated to the Circle of Moms Top 25 Moms with Blended Families - 2012 list.

I received the email a little bit ago and sort of stopped in my tracks. Me? A top 25er? WOO HOOO!!!! Spank my ass and call me excited! (that came out bad, didn't it?)

I don't care. I'm excited about the nomination. Apparently to make the final top 25 list, I need people to vote for me.

 

According to Circle of Moms, Top 25 program honors bloggers who write about topics of interest to moms. Their mission is 'to connect our six million moms to the resources they need most, and those resources include exceptional mom blogs!' That there is a category for blended families makes me puddle with excitement. It's almost as if I'm gaining access to the 'rmom' club and it feels SO cool.

If you, too, want to see The Erin Experiment listed in the top 25, please click that Circle of Moms button up above and vote!


A few FAQs before you click over:

How do I vote for my favorite blog?Vote by clicking the orange "thumbs up" button next to the name of a blog.

Do you need to be a member of Circle of Moms to vote?No.

How often can I vote?You can vote once per blog every 24 hours. So for example, if you voted today at 10am, you wouldn't be able to vote again until tomorrow at 10am.
In order to protect against ballot stuffing, we limit the frequency of votes from a single network. So if you're connected to a network that shares an IP address (like in an office), you may be prevented from voting if another person in your network has already voted. No voting system is perfect, unfortunately, but this is one of many precautions we've taken to prevent cheating and protect the integrity of the competition.

I'll keep you posted on the outcome!

Now pardon me but I need go to find and dust off my tiara :-P