Like The White Stripes sing..

"I just don't know what to do with myself" is the perfect title for this morning, until I realized I had a day completely alone! For the first time in at least 7-8 months, I have been completely alone. This is something you take for granted when single, childless, or pretty much a voluntary recluse. I loved living alone in a tiny place in the Cove right before I met Phillip, and it was very very hard for me to get used to sharing space. Not that he isn't easy to get along with, but I would literally jump the first year of my marriage when he would show up in the same room as me! true and funny for a newlywed.
After 5 years of complete and utter bliss and peace, we decided to throw a wrench into an otherwise perfectly great union and bring our child into the world. For almost exactly 2 years (his bday is 7 days after mine in Jan.) I have been with Nick, my husband or a combination of them plus friends, family etc of course. We are very social people and I love our active life. Emotionally I think this life has elevated my moods and kept me from moping around drinking cheap red wine and writing really bad poetry like I tended to do when alone and single. Of course, most of those days and nights were crazy and fun and full of dancing and good times.
Today, Phillip and NIck are actually out of town and comming back tonight. It's been really weird, I went to the store, the gym and then kept looking around for the baby tote, wondering when he was going to wake up from his nap- only to remember- oh yeah! he's not here! I missed them both, but have done more in one single day than in all of 2008. I would list them for you but that would bore you even more.
It's just strange that I could actually remember the last time I was completely alone. I hadn't visited that country in a long, long time. ahh- Alone Land! And, I did miss it too. As I layed out in the backyard reading (yet another luxury), I thought about how cramped my books are now, how I can't find stuff half the time, how I don't ever paint like I used to,and how to be married is to negotiate subconsiously, your own wants and needs for someone elses. And you raise your child "unselfishly" loving them, yet thinking selfish thoughts like "I never get a bubble bath anymore because my child bangs on the bathroom door every single time I close it".
Yet....we move on, and I move on with my crowded, semi-cluttered, shared space and I appreciate it. After all, these are my choices. And when I really need my space, Nick just sits quietly in his car seat and smiles while I sing along to songs during one of our ventures out into the world. My own space is now all around me, and also in some tiny place kept just for me, in my heart.