Sometimes It's Nice to Not be Needed

TH just returned from a 2-week business trip to Europe. Two weeks. Two weeks of single-handedly trying to run what we lovingly refer to as our "two-person lifestyle." Two weeks of getting baby girl up and out the door on time, a deceptively simple description that actually involves feeding cats, pulling together pump parts, thawing and bottling milk, getting her lunch and snacks ready to go, getting my own breakfast, lunch, and snacks ready to go, showering, putting together an outfit that makes me look like a reasonably sane, well-put-together professional, waking up baby girl, feeding the cats again, feeding baby girl breakfast, getting her dressed, (taking out the trash if it's trash day), loading up the car with my lunch, her diaper bag, the pump, my purse, and getting us both out the door . . . on time. That does not include the things I do the night before to prep for the morning. The evenings were similarly scheduled, but with washing dirty dishes from the day and making us both dinner and watering the lawn and cleaning out the litter box and doing laundry. In short, pretty much every minute of the day, from when I woke at 5:45 a.m. to when I crashed at 10 p.m. was full of keeping the wheels of our lives running smoothly.

I thought I'd hate it. I thought I'd be miserable missing my husband, feeling overwhelmed with all the tasks at hand. I scheduled for my parents to come and spend the weekend with me, and for my mom to stay another three days into the week, a preemptive move designed to save my sanity.

But then a funny thing happened. When baby girl was asleep for the night and I had run through all the chores I had to take care of, I would stop and look around and realize that I had, for the first time in nine-and-a-half months, some real, honest-to-God free time. As in, no one needed anything from me. No one was around. No one was talking to me. I had taken care of all of my responsibilities and the only thing left (for the 30-45 minutes left in the day) was to do whatever I wanted to do.

And it was nice.

You see, TH is actually pretty great about giving me some "me time." But even then, I feel a twinge or two of guilt for choosing working out or blogging or losing myself into a TV coma over spending time with him. Our lives are so busy, there are only small windows for us to find time to reconnect with each other. And we make it a point to take advantage of those times as much as possible. And that's a good thing. I don't regret that one bit. I don't enjoy choosing myself over my husband. That's not relaxing to me. What IS relaxing is not having to make that choice. Relaxing is finding yourself alone in your house with the freedom to do whatever you want for the time you have. In fact, it was so relaxing having that time that I actually was a little bummed when my parents arrived to "save my sanity"--it meant I had other people to interact with and reconnect with and entertain and talk to.

And now that my husband is back, as nice as my novel alone time was, I'm infinitely happier with him here. No matter how nice it is to have silence and the freedom to be alone with my thoughts, it's nicer still to have someone home who knows me, who knows about the trials and tribulations I face during the day, who is concerned about me, who I can vent to and who agrees with everything I say. It's nice to have my support back.

But for that time he was gone, the time my parents hadn't come yet to save me, the time I actually spent all by myself, tackling our two-person life head-on . . . for those six days, it was surprisingly nice to not be needed.