Alone

Okay friends, it's official:  I'm not good at living alone.

I said goodbye to my husband this morning, and it was super sad.  He's moving to Reno until October 26 so that he can do a clinical rotation.  It's a necessary step on our way to being "Dr. and Mrs. Webb," but I don't like it.

I felt so pathetic standing out there by the suburban, tearing up as I said goodbye.  I wore some chunky sunglasses to hide it, but a pesky tear escaped the sanctuary of my plastic sunglass-shield.  "Are you crying?" asked Rex.  "Don't cry - you're going to be fine!"  He wiped the tear off of my cheek and pulled me in for another hug.

I spent a bit of time feeling stupid.  I mean, people have spouses in the military who are deployed for a year at a time, and I'm crying over a month....that's dumb.  But you know what? I decided something:  being away from my best friend for a month STINKS, and there's no way around that.  It's just going to be sad, and it's okay that I'm sad about it.

Another reason I'm sad is this:  I don't know how to live alone!  I really don't.  In the six years that Rex and I have been together, the longest we've been apart was for ten days when I went to Australia.  It feels really weird to be without him.  For example, I set out to cook lunch and realized that I don't know how to cook for one person.  I'm used to cooking for five people (one person is me and the other four are all Rex...he eats a lot).  How do you cook for just one? It seems depressing.

Then I went to go clean up our bedroom, and I started thinking - what am I going to wear to bed tonight?  My extensive collection of silky lingerie seems pretty dumb to wear when it's just me and the cat sleeping in the bed, but I don't know if I even have "normal" pajamas anymore.  I mean, what's the point of pajamas again?  Why don't I just sleep in my everyday clothes?  I guess maybe I'll wear gym clothes to be comfy...  Hmmm...

Also, there's our beagle Elvis.  As soon as Rex left, Elvis started running around the apartment sniffing for him.  He looked at me as if to say, "Umm...you both went outside, so how come only you came back?"  It's no secret that Rex and Elvis have a special connection, so I'm pretty sure that Elvis is bummed to be stuck with only me.  I tried to warm Elvis up to the idea of living just the two of us by letting him lick the dirty dishes before I washed them, but it was a bit anticlimactic because my favorite part of doing that is when Rex sees Elvis licking the dishes and says, "Christine! What are you doing?!  He can't eat people food!  And it's nasty to let him lick off of our dishes!  Ewwwwww!"  And then we have a flirty fight about how to "raise our dog" correctly.  Today, though, no one was there to yell at me.  It made me even sadder.

To cheer myself up, I decided to go try on my bridesmaid's dress for the wedding I'm in next weekend.  After all, I bought the dress in July so I figured I should probably make sure that it still fits.  It's a really pretty dress that I will actually wear again (I've been tempted to wear it quite a few times since I bought it, but I figure it's rude to wear it before the wedding).  It's hard to feel sad when you're wearing a pretty dress, so I put it on.   As soon as I put it on, I ran into a problem.  Explain this one to me, you live-aloners:  How are you supposed to get a zipper unstuck if you live alone?!?!  Is my DOG supposed to get it unstuck for me?  Do I walk down to my old-man neighbor while I'm half-dressed and ask him to get me out of this situation?  I pretty much hopped around my room looking ridiculous until I got my zipper unstuck.  Good news, though: the dress still fits.  The zipper just stinks.

Rex bought me a bouquet of lilies yesterday, and they are gorgeous.  I came home from school and they were sitting on the counter.  Rex told me that the lilies should stay alive for about two weeks, and when they die he'll send me some new ones.  Then, by the time those die, he'll be home.  So really he's not going to be long for too long: just two lily lifetimes.  It was really sweet and romantic, but it makes me miss him even more every time I see the lilies.

Isn't this pathetic?!  It's a month.  ONE MONTH!  I need to stop feeling sorry for myself and realize that lots of people are separated for way longer than that.  I've always suspected that Rex and I are more in love than a lot of other couples, though, so that makes it harder...  Life seems like a two-person job.  I don't like trying to do it alone.

Hurry home, Rex.  I miss you.