May 26, 2011 by Amy
What I miss
I realized today that what I miss when he’s in Denmark (or Bangalore, or Mumbai, or London, or Seoul, or Canberra, or even West Kingston) goes beyond the usual. Beyond the help with dinner, cleaning up, caring for Zoe. It goes beyond the household chores that two people share when they live together. (Although I do miss his help around the house. Let’s not dilute that message too much.)
What I really miss are the casual conversations that don’t seem very intense or in-depth but really, truly make up the fabric of our lives. What happened at work today (for both of us). What happened at school. Conversations and e-mails with friends and family. Even sorting the mail can turn into a pretty good chat. Especially when we get yet another mailing from The Church about The Dangers of Pornography. (What is up with that this year, anyway? The Church has made me think more about pornography recently than I ever have, which I doubt is her intention. Funny how that happens frequently.)
Our conversations this week have been two-minute snippets. “Hey.” “Hey!” “How is everything? How is Zoe?” “Great! She’s doing really well. Crabby this morning but fine now.” “Oh, that’s good. Okay, it’s 2 a.m. here and I need to get to bed.” “Okay. Talk to you later. I love you.” “Love you, too. Bye.”
That’s when I get him at all. The week has been full of European rings (it’s more of a buzz than a ring, really) that dead-end into an automated message asking me to enter my voicemail box number. I can’t leave voice messages when he’s over there. Texting works sporadically. He’s inundated with email already, so it’s a crapshoot as to when he’ll finally get around to reading whatever I send. Getting an email response from him is virtually unexpected.
In other words, he’s pretty much completely unreachable. Which, to me, is ridiculous in 2011.
He’s having a blast, from what I can tell, which is awesome. Zozer and I are hangin’ cool, doing our Girls’ Week thing, so we’re having fun, too. I just miss the little daily interaction is all. The sharing of lives.
He’s home tomorrow, thankfully. It can’t come soon enough. I need to chatter in his ear about all the mundane things that happen every day. (This, I think, is truly why he so loves international travel. His ears get a break!)
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