home alone

We have been married for 55 years, 9 months and 13 days. We still like each other, in addition to still loving each other. We enjoy spending time together, doing things together, talking ad infinitum, going for walks, making each other laugh, just being with each other.

But oh, what a joy it is when she’s away and I can be home alone.

By myself. 

I don’t have to eat at the dining table. Or use actual dinner plates or the usual cloth napkin.

Instead of anything elaborate, I can make myself just a simple sandwich, something she can’t eat — like spicy hummus with hot mustard on pumpernickel. I can eat it in front of the TV, watching a basketball game (she has little interest) or seeing “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (the original version, of course) for the 15th or 20th time. (She likes the movie quite a lot, she says, but once every couple of years is more than enough for her.)

I don’t have to eat that sandwich dinner at 6:30 or so, standard time for us because she doesn’t like to eat too late because it impacts her digestion. I can eat late, after the game starts, because eating late doesn’t interfere with my digestion.

I can leave the dirty dishes in the sink, trying to remember to do them all right before she comes home.

I can go to bed late, later than she prefers.

I can spread out in bed, laying diagonally, and not be worried that I will disturb her sleep.

If I wake up in the middle of the night, which happens, alas, all too frequently, I can turn the light on, get my book, read a little, all of which I can’t do when she’s here for fear of disturbing her sleep.

I can have the ceiling fan on all the way up to medium, maybe even high, and not have to dial it down or beg her to let me dial it up.

I can spread out the stuff I’m reading all across the couch, unconcerned that I haven’t left enough space for her to spread out all her stuff across the couch. I can, more generally, leave things where I want, like clothes draped from the stationary bike or scattered over the bedroom floor.

I can play loud music loudly or really raise the volume on the TV, which she hates because it hurts her ears, but allows me to actually hear well.

I don’t have to talk when I don’t feel like talking.

I can be totally quiet and I don’t have to explain why I’m totally quiet and don’t feel like talking.

According to those who have studied long-term marriages, even happy couples retain the individual need for psychological “territory,” for private mental space. After having spent tens of thousands of hours together, in the same space both physical and metaphorical, we sometimes need a counterbalance, what psychologists call a need to restore a sense of personal autonomy.

I am really quite enjoying my current sense of personal autonomy. But she is going to be home soon, and despite all the sandwiches I’ve been able to eat in front of the TV, I’m looking forward to her return.

But first I just have to do all those dirty dishes in the sink.