Friday, April 4, 2014

Call Me Polly...


...'cause I, too, am all alone.

I'm feeling particularly misabused about it, too, since I have neither a snazzy old phone nor a delicately pink-dyed marabou bed jacket.

Oh, it's nothing to panic about, mind you, and it's strictly temporary.  It's just that I've sent Mr. Muscato off this week for a stretch of Being Nice to His Mother over in Cairo.  Since he'll also be checking in with our various (and, to an extent, distinctly motley) circles of friends, basking in the loveliness of an Egyptian spring (of the actual rather than the political variety - the latter has sadly more or less curdled in past few years), and staying at least some of the time in our comfortable flat, I don't at all feel sorry for him, however much family lunacy assault him on arrival.

By contrast, I'm still here in the only still embryonic warmer weather we've been rather anxiously enjoying this week - it seems so tentative, as if it were still quite capable of changing its mind and bringing us another blast of snow.  And, of course, I'm single-parenting two extremely high-maintenance terriers, both of whom become essentially impossible the moment a suitcase appears and remain so until it is at last stowed away. They're behaving, for the moment, but only just.

As for me, as always every separation reminds me of what a treasurable thing I have in this marriage, and how grumpy and out of sorts I quickly become when our companionable togetherness is interrupted.  Also I spent forty years as a singleton, at least some of them quite contentedly, the last decade has to a point ruined me for my own company.  These little interludes become a time to consider what could have happened had I decided not to go to the Nile Hilton for my usual weekend swim that summer Friday all those years ago.  Given how acidulous and in someways spinsterish I've managed to become even with a happy home, it doesn't really bear thinking...

6 comments:

  1. Well, then don't think about it. Concentrate instead on matching your nails with your lip lacquer, as Ms Bergen so admirably does. These things don't just happen by accident, you know.

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  2. I'm just surprised you didn't choose Vikki Carr - It Must Be Him...

    Jx

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  3. Oh, Doll, you must have been watching Move Over, Darling the other evening just like I was. Why else would the middling Ms. Bergen be on your mind? Much like any hundred sitcom plots, that flick chugs along into heightened emotion and mania when a sentence or two of explanation by one character would settle the mistaken identity, the misinterpreted situation, the misunderstood words, etc. But it still works like gangbusters as the light romp that it is. And that young Mr. Garner is some handsome dish...

    But I digress. I do feel you, Muscato. I was a blissfully happy bachelor until the age of 38 and led a very full life. After 11 years with my husband, I am ruined - just not quite myself without him. His 11 day trip to Jakarta had me announcing on his return that he can never leave me and must absolutely precede me in leaving this realm. Nonsense, to be sure. We all go on. But it did make me keenly aware of how lucky I've been and reminded me to cherish whatever years or decades we have ahead of us.

    Now if Peenee's advice about matching your nail and lip lacquer don't occupy your time quite enough, go for the trifecta like Miss Polly and bring the upholstery into the equation.

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  4. It's a perfect opportunity to recharge your batteries, as it were. You'll be better for it and so will your marriage. Take it from someone who has no idea what he's talking about!

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  5. There are moments in every relationship, no matter how good, where you wish you were alone in your house just for a few minutes. Its one of the few places where today where you can be alone. But when you get those moments, its good to be reminded how much you wish he was with you at the second the house gets too quiet. But these little separations are good - they make you remember how much you miss one and other. Now, do something that you couldn't normally do when he is about, and then report back. THAT is your homework.

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  6. It is kind of fun to have the place to myself, although the presence (and care and feeding) of the terriers means it's not like I'm likely to lash out wildly in any new direction. On the other hand, I did spend most of this afternoon watching terrible old B-movies on YouTube, so there's that.

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