This was us in August, saying goodbye.
The difficulties. Ah, the difficulties.
I'm not in the mood to whine and rant (and, really, that's not all that Christian when it comes right down to it). It has been a difficult year, yes. But I'm not going to write a long post about how hard and miserable it's been to be apart. Those who have done it know that it is both hard and miserable at times. Those who haven't had to do it I hope never will.
What I am going to share are a few short examples of moments when we both realized how much we need and value each other, and how much easier life is when we're together.
Thus: Part III - the difficulties of spending nine months apart from my husband.
1. The car battery incident.
I had forgotten what it was like to not have someone you could depend on to drop everything and help out at a moment's notice. There have been rare occasions when Daryl and I have pulled one another out of meetings or left work to care for one another in an emergency. The time I stepped on a glass lantern (long story, that one) and he had to carry me to the car and then into the urgent care to have my foot stitched up. The times he left his packed lunch on the counter and I brought it to him at school. This year, with a faraway husband, I just had to make do. He would help if he could, certainly, but from a thousand miles away he couldn't always do much.
One chilly winter day my car battery died in our parking lot. No big deal, I thought. I'll just jump it! I called a friend who happened to be home and she came out and we jumped it. Yup, two women jumped a car with no problem. We felt pretty proud of ourselves.
I let it run for awhile, and then drove to the grocery store a few miles away. You probably know where the story goes from here, but the battery died again. If you know me, you know that I know next to nothing about cars. Put gas in, change the oil, and it should work fine, right? Now I wasn't sure what to do. What if I got stranded? What if that friend wasn't home? It was the middle of the day and almost everyone I knew was at work or in class. It was cold. Should I hang out in the grocery store, wandering the aisles for hours? Should I walk home on the shoulder of the highway in the cold? I panicked. Called Daryl - no answer. He was in class. Even if I had gotten through, what could he have done? Called my Dad (an equally unhelpful idea, as he lives in Wisconsin, but in the moment it seemed like the next best option). He told me to go to the Pep Boys to get the battery looked at when I could get it jumped.
It surprised me how frazzled I felt. There was no significant crisis - I wasn't lost in the wilderness in sub-zero temperatures. I was at the grocery store. Worst case scenario I could buy myself a bottle of juice and read the magazines until my rescue came. Or I could be brave and ask a random person for a jump. But the fact that my usual knight-in-shining-armor was far away was unsettling. Sure, this was just a car battery. But what if I broke my leg? Would I crawl to the neighbor's apartment for help? Things weren't disastrous, certainly, but they were suddenly darned inconvenient.
After a few moments of these new thoughts swirling in my brain, I finally got smart and called the same friend who had jumped me half an hour before. She was home. She jumped the car and I drove it straight to the Pep Boys and walked home.
2. The (lack of) laundry folding.
Daryl hates folding laundry. Hates it. With a burning passion. This year Daryl just wears wrinkly shirts. He misses me. One of his favorite things to hear when I visit is, "Do you want me to fold that pile of clean laundry?" For that question I always get a hug and a shy, "Well... I wouldn't mind it..."
You see, I have to fold and put away the laundry right away at our Princeton apartment, or you-know-who finds it...
3. The painters coming early.
There were several instances this year where I longed for a husband at home to take care of an awkward situation. One was when our ceiling developed a serious leak and needed to be fixed and repainted. The painters stopped by the afternoon before and told me they'd be there between 9:00am and noon.
I am NOT a morning person. Most of my classes start at ten in the morning or later. Still, no matter. If they might arrive at nine, I would certainly be out by ten till. I got up early in order to leave the house before the painters might arrive. At 8:30, there was a knock on the door. I was in a towel with dripping wet hair. I looked through the peep hole only to see three workmen with painting equipment standing in the hallway. Boy, would I have liked Daryl to field that one... Instead I shouted an awkward - "I'll be ready in a minute!" and frantically dressed and ran out the door five minutes later, dripping wet hair and all.
4. He's my husband and yes, I'm being selfish with him.
One of the things we knew would be tough this year was that people like Daryl. Specifically, his Princeton friends like him. He has a wonderful cadre of friends at the seminary. The trouble was that he was usually only in town for two or three days a month. Sometimes I had to learn to share those precious hours. Sometimes we had to politely decline invitations. It was interesting to learn the balance between caring for our marriage (we need us time!) and loving our friends and letting them love us.
Once Daryl's friends John and Matt had picked him up at the airport and driven him to Princeton while I was at play practice. They spent a couple of hours together, and Daryl had a really wonderful time. On our return trip to the airport that Sunday, Daryl reflected on their time.
"I'm so glad I came to town this weekend," he said. "I had such a great visit with John and Matt." There was a moment's pause, and then he looked over at me sheepishly. "And with you, of course."
No worries, love. I know you enjoy your man-friends.
5. The "we're separated" conversations.
This was how I often mistakenly described our situation. Then I got looks of sympathy/disapproval/sadness/confusion/judgment/disappointment. Then I would quickly correct myself: "Oh, no, our marriage is fine! Really! It's fine! We're geographically separated..." Awkward, awkward, awkward.
6. Daryl's serious addiction to the West Wing.
We've both found that creating and sticking to routines have helped us this year. When I get stressed, I do puzzles (doesn't make a lot of sense, but it really helps). When Daryl has trouble falling asleep, he watches an episode of The West Wing as he nods off. This has become part of his routine. We've both been through the series a couple of times, but now he quotes lines in conversations regularly. Without being able to fall asleep next to me, he's taken to falling asleep with Josh (Bradley Whitford), Toby (Richard Schiff), Leo (John Spencer), CJ (Allison Janney), Donna (Janelle Moloney), and Sam (Rob Lowe). This isn't a difficulty, per say, though I'm committed to not sharing our bed with the entire Hollywood cast come May...
7. The sick-and-dying cat.
Oh, Eliot, how we love you. Thank you for not dying. No thanks for giving me a couple weeks of utter hell. But it was worth it to keep you alive, silly silly cat.
8. I forgot...
I spent a summer during high school working for a Christian camp in Jackson, Wyoming. At the end of camp, the friends I'd worked with wrote notes in the back of my journal as a keepsake. Several of them mentioned what had become my catchphrase over the summer: "Where's my [fill in the blank]?"
I have lost things this year. I lose things. I'm not disorganized, per se, I just forget to double check sometimes. Daryl is my double-checker. He actually gets down on his hands and knees and looks under hotel beds. He looks in drawers. He checks underneath restaurant tables. I do not do these things. When we're together, I'm golden. When we're not, I'm in a bit of trouble.
Even this past weekend, which I spent in Nashville with Daryl, I was reminded of how much God must love me to find me a man who double-checks. Daryl took me to "Fiddlecakes," a gf bakery in Nashville. There I bought a cinnamon roll (a cinnamon roll! I have been craving these for NINE MONTHS!!!) which I devoured immediately, and a chocolate cupcake. At most gf bakeries there are no prices listed (Fiddlecakes was no exception). The reason for this is that us gf-ers will pay pretty much anything for a decent and safe pastry that we didn't have to bake ourselves. So this chocolate cupcake was like gold - not because it was exorbitantly priced, but because it was so terribly exciting.
We went to Panera to work on our final papers, and sat in the outside patio area in the beautiful Nashville sun. I put the golden cupcake under the table (it was in a box) to avoid having the frosting melt in the sun. And promptly left it there. Until Daryl double-checked.
I love that man.
9. Church.
I have a new appreciation for what it's like to be single and mid-20s in the church. It can be lonely to sit by myself in a pew when I don't run into someone I know. It can be difficult to summon the courage to sit with someone new, to meet someone new, week after week. It can be tempting to sleep in, to not bother (and I love church! I'm on my way to pastor-hood, after all!). After these months I'm more committed than ever to making sure there aren't any forgotten demographics in the church - that all are included in worship, events, and retreats.
Not that my church has excluded me in any way (I love, love, love my church, and it hasn't at all), but I do have a new appreciation for the extra strength and courage it takes to go to church alone week after week, and a new focus on reaching out to others around me in the pews who are alone - both those who remain single and those who are newly alone because of a military deployment, an empty nest, or the death of a spouse.
Next, the joys of nine months apart from my husband (and - this may surprise you - there were many).
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