Just past nine on a foggy morning Sunday in August: waking to a friendly and very loud blue jay squawking outside my bedroom window, waking alone, and feeling all the space in the bed, feeling my own heartbeat, feeling my legs against the soft comforter cover, realising I am sleeping right in the center of the bed - I need make room for no one but myself.
It's been a week plus of days and nights of my own space. He's been on the road playing music, his life's work. As it got closer to his leaving I felt sad, that little girl sad, that homesick in the pit of my stomach sad: because as funny and strange as it seems, in the 13 years of together, we had never spent more than one night apart. New territory. For both of us.
A few days into this separate-ness, each of us in our own lives, I was so filled with joy. A happy and content and excited joy, all at the same time. It was just me, just my voice in my head, just my needs to be met, just my thoughts to think and be aware of, just me. I have always been quite content to have it be just me, myself and I: my mother often talks about being amazed that even at 4 or 5 months old, I could amuse myself for hours, no need for her to play, or entertain, or keep me company. That has never changed.
And yet, when you partner with another, there is so much that needs to be shared, communicated, supported, acted on, worked out, balanced. In this space apart, I can clearly see where I constantly stretch myself past the balance point. Where so much of my time is taken up with him: his needs, his feelings, his path in this life. Where my own needs, feelings, and path sometimes take a back seat to his, sometimes I put them on hold.
As the time has passed in the last few days I started feeling like I wanted him to be gone longer, that he could stay away for another week, even two. That I needed more time with the me, myself and I triumvirate, that I should have more solitude, more time. That sad and homesick little girl, the one who didn't want him to leave, was now mad at him for coming home.
If I am completely truthful with myself, I know that I need to learn to take the time I need when he is home. Truthfully, I have to put myself first when I need it that way, I need to speak up and say what I need, I need to take that responsibility.
He arrives home later this afternoon, he called from the airport in Chicago this morning, and I felt happy. Happy that he is getting on a plane and coming home, happy that I felt joyful about his return, happy that I had this space and time to learn a few more important truths about who I am with myself, and in this relationship. Speaking up about what I need in the moment, from him, and from myself, trusting my own voice, just my own voice, and knowing that speaking the truth of my own voice, my own thoughts and feelings, is just the right balance I need to find: whether high up in the air, or feet on the ground, joyful or confused, alone or together, together or alone.
Practice. It seems this whole life is about practice, and rhythm, and more practice, oh! and trusting that voice inside me, that voice that has always spoken a clear and heartfelt truth, that voice that has never let me down (tho I have let myself down on those few occasions when I didn't listen), that voice who knows who I am, that voice who is me.
