Thursday, January 29, 2015

Alone Time


In my last post I celebrated the fact that Jon and I are together.  "It's amazing," I said.  You know what else is amazing?

Having the apartment to myself.

Alone time, so loathed when Jon was across the ocean, is again a glorious thing.

You were right, dear readers; my single girl behaviors are still out on display even though my husband is around, and he no longer bats an eye when I come out of the bathroom with my face slathered in green mud or when I decide I'm going to blast the soundtrack to Wicked while sweeping.  In fact, he's even started participating in my conversations with Charlie!  But sometimes - just sometimes - I really want to be by myself in the apartment.

Jon has a few evenings a month on his own at home due to the frequency of my work events and, now that he's doing shiftwork, I've enjoyed a few, too.  (In the interest of full disclosure, though, I will tell you that, after Jon had been in DC for about six weeks, I ordered him out of the apartment for an evening so I could breathe.  I kissed him when I got home from the office and handed him $40 in cash and told him not to come back until 10pm.  I just needed one night!)  Tonight, actually, Jon's pulling a late one, so I'll get to eat unspicy stir fry and watch Law and Order: SVU and flip through catalogues filled with things we'll never buy - all with impunity.  It's going to be fabulous.

20 comments:

  1. This made me chuckle. I feel this way sometimes, but the reality is I have no girlfriends in Baltimore. I have friends, but none that I'd categorize as the types you could have a girl's night with. Those types of friends live elsewhere, and I'm lucky to see them a couple times a year. I kind of like to be able to do whatever I want when Andrew is out of town for business on the rare occasion, but I also hate it because of the lack of girlfriends. It's interesting to read your perspective on this, because for me, I hate not having him around because he is my best friend, so without him there I don't know who else to hang out with. Gosh, I sound depressing...hahaha!

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  2. I so now what you mean by those alone nights! When I first moved to Iceland and spent my days home alone I hated nights on my own. Now they are some of my favorite nights!

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  3. I used to hate how late Scott came home from work when we lived in New York {his commute to and from the city was hideous} but I absolutely loved the three or four hours I had to myself when I came home from work, to just do whatever. Now that he's working out of the house, we kind of divide up the house first thing in the morning - upstairs and downstairs - so that we can goof off or do whatever while our coffee wakes us up. I love having him around now, just not ALL the time.

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  4. It's funny - I don't "crave" alone time (I'm your typical type A extrovert) but then when I get it, I'll admit it feels a bit freeing. That being said though, I feel like we've hit a good groove where we can both do our own thing while being in the house at the same time.

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  5. PS I read your last post yesterday and typed up a big comment in reply and then my computer froze so I jumped ship. In a nutshell though - so happy for you :)

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  6. When Jon does the early shift, he leaves about 15 minutes after my alarm's gone off. It's only 90 minutes until I go to work, but drinking my coffee on my own (well, with Charlie) is so peaceful...

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  7. yeah... we're getting there, but I'm still enough in the OMG WE LIVE IN THE SAME PLACE state of mind that I hate doing two different things when we're both in the apartment. (smothering? me? never! haha)

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  8. Well, tonight was a JUST ME night - not even Charlie was around! I'm definitely an extrovert, but every so often I need to be by myself. At the same time, I'm glad that Jon comes home to me instead of to his old flat in London after work! But in terms of hanging out with a non-S.O. friend... it can be HARD when you're an adult. I hear that :(

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  9. Although I saw this post yesterday, I kept it specially for my "alone" time today! :-) I would go mad without appartment alone time.

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  10. Not sure if it is my personality type or from growing up as an only child but I need loads of alone time so right now with my not working and Fredrik really busy with school and work it is perfect for me. What took me a bit to realize though is that when Fredrik does come home I do not get all that time since he will need his own alone time as well, luckily he only needs a few hours each week so when I do laundry he listens to loud metal music and reads about sports!

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  11. During the 3 years my Irishman and I have been living together we were pretty much plagued with jobs that never allowed us to see each other (in the US I was a Flight Attendant while he was working, and once we moved to Ireland he worked an hour and a half away from where my school was), and that's on top of the 2 years of long distance before that. We just recently had a change in visa status that allowed us to live right by where he works and now I'm finally looking for jobs, but being able to see each other so much has been such an odd transition!


    This is the first time in 5 years that we get evenings and weekends together and we almost don't know what to do with it, so I totally understand how you feel! I hope you enjoyed your you-time evening, getting those bits to ourselves helps us appreciate the rest of the time together that we worked so hard to get even more!

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  12. I'm the opposite! I hate being alone in the flat for more than a couple of hours, especially at night. (I'm a big scaredy cat). I know it'll be different once I'm working, but for now I have way more alone time at home than I could ever want or need!

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  13. OMG ME TOO! I never realized how much I cherished my alone time until Matt started working from home. Not that I don't love spending time with him, blah blah blah...but the rare nights he goes out, IT'S ON - I order pizza with all the toppings he hates, sing at the top of my lungs, do ballet in the living room, and immediately turn on Buffy. It's glorious.

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  14. I hear ya! It was not easy having Dan home all the time during his unemployment, since I work from home. Luckily he still spent lots of time working outside on his car or spending time with his dad and brothers. But now we're at the opposite problem, being long-distance for five weeks. Luckily we're together this weekend!

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  15. When Nick and I first moved to Texas, we lived in a one bedroom apartment. Basically we couldn't ever be more than like 20 feet away from each other. It drove me CRAZY. That lasted about 6 months, then we moved into a two bedroom apartment. Much better! haha.

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  16. It's all about that delicate balance! Nat and I spent three and a half years living apart and we cherished every minute we had together. Now I'm itching for a couple of hours alone in the apartment, and he can't wait to get back on the road for his long solitary bike rides. Nice to know we're in good company :) www.kissnride.com

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