Alone Time

by Audrey Ference

Well, so Frank left Sunday morning for a four-day business trip to San Francisco. Which is great for him, I mean, San Francisco is awesome. I’d love a free trip there. It’s just weird because that’s kind of almost the longest Frank and I have gone being apart, pretty much since we met. Probably a Christmas or Thanksgiving trip has topped it, but at least then we were both home visiting family, not one person left alone in a two-person apartment.

And I realize that is completely vomit-inducing to be like “Oh we’ve never been apart so long waah.” I am fully aware that I’m totally lucky that I’m not dating someone who has to travel for work a lot or is in the military or who has to live apart from me for an extended period of time. My intention is not to complain. Or well actually I guess it is but I’m trying to mitigate the irritatingness with self-awareness.

I detest the idea that I am now the sort of person who doesn’t feel complete without their partner around, and to be fair, I don’t think it’s that exactly. I mean, Frank and I do plenty of stuff separately. I guess I’m just always amazed at the extent to which living with a person can be habit forming.

If I were single, I think I’d like living alone, but being alone in a two-person apartment isn’t the same as living alone. Just so much of each of our day-to-day routine is intertwined with the other’s—when I get up in the morning, when and what I have for dinner, who gets to pick what’s on the TV, the cleanliness of the apartment. Everything.

And so to be alone for a day or four is odd feeling, because on the one hand, it’s not like I have time to develop entirely new habits and ways of doing things by myself because as soon as I get adjusted to them, Frank will be home again. But it’s a long enough time that the fun of leaving dirty clothes on floor and talking to myself and eating stuff he hates and staying out extra-late with friends has worn off.