Dancing With Myself
I moved out of my parents’ home and in with Dorothy on my 18th birthday, the first day it was legally permissible. That makes it sound like I was fleeing an abusive home life, which isn’t true at all. The worst that can be said about my parents is that they passive-aggressively pursued their interests without much regard for my comfort. Which seems dramatically less evil than it did at the time, now that I’ve parented. I get it.
It was less about running from and more about running towards. I was ready to launch my real life, and had a partner to help me. Why wait around? For what?
The unintended outcome of all that is that I have never been alone and fully responsible for myself. OK, almost never. While we were divorcing Dorothy worked at the Ashland Shakespeare Festival for a year while I set up shop in San Francisco. One of the reasons we remarried is because neither of us particularly enjoyed our Wanderjahr, although for very different reasons.
Part of that separation involved figuring out whether the problems we were having were worth overcoming or whether there was greener grass elsewhere. In Dorothy’s case, that manifested as dating one of the actors, who eventually proposed marriage. Faced with a specific A/B choice, rather than a generic ballot, Dorothy decided that fixing what was up with us was the best path.
My journey led to the same destination but took an entirely different path. I, too, was committed to exploring the alternatives and applied myself with gusto. I made a date with a different girl every one of the 52 weeks Dorothy and I were separated. You’ll notice a said “made a date,” not “went on a date.” That’s because I was stood up on every single one of those dates. Every. Single. One.
After a year of that, running back to Dorothy, tail tucked between legs and forelock tugged, was a pretty easy call. I’d have done pretty much anything to avoid the future that year portended. Including admitting that I was a dick and that all of our problems were my fault. An admission made at least slightly easier as a result of it being true.
I’ve thought about that year a lot, and the most plausible explanation I’ve come up with is that the first few cancellations were a coincidence, and then I got the yips. I think I gave off an air of flop sweat and desperation that women sensed. Easier to say yes to my face with no intention of following through than to deal with me directly. I suppose if any credit accrues to me at all in this debacle, and it doesn’t, it’s that I kept at it. Long past the point where it made sense to do so, a recurring theme for those following closely.
Over our several hundred years together, Dorothy and I have established pretty clear spheres of influence. I balance the checkbook, she feeds us. I take care of logistics, she makes sure our lives are beautiful. I ignore things, she obsesses about them. Overall, a pretty decent division of labor.
But the thing about being apart for five months is not only that we’ve lost each other’s companionship, but we’ve also lost each other’s labors. I’d have to feed myself. If Dorothy wanted to visit St. Louis, she’d have to figure out how to get there on her own. On the one hand, all part of the Neuroplasticity Tour. Good for us. Personal growth, y’all. On the other hand, oh, that just doesn’t sound fun.
And it wasn’t!
There’s been an element of the solo travel that’s been liberating. We’ve been an us so long that I sometimes think we’re a single organism with the same desires and needs, but that’s pretty clearly stupid. When we have people join us we’re always aware of the triangulation necessary to make sure everyone’s having fun. But we obviously triangulate with one another, even if we do it so gracefully that we’re not fully aware that we’re even doing it.
So the ability to stand up, put on pants, and walk out the door is pretty cool. It’s a lovely freedom, and very difficult not to enjoy. Is it worth giving up Dorothy’s companionship to get there? Not even close. It’s like the difference between finding a quarter on the street and a $100 bill. No comparison. Although it does calibrate Dorothy specifically as $99.75 of value added. Good to have that calculation in the bag.
And there’s the feeling of accomplishment that comes with being fully autonomous and taking care of myself like a grown-up. Finally, I’m a real boy! But it’s fucking exhausting. I feel like I have to be vigilant and mindful about everything, with no one there to back me up. Am I in the swimming pool when it starts raining and thundering? My call as to whether I should get out. Open wound? My job to figure out how to treat it. Has that meat gone bad? That decision is mine alone. It’s so much work staying alive. It really doesn’t seem like a one-person job.
So the real takeaway from all of this is that the solo travel makes sense and we can both manage fine, but not for five months. That’s way too long. But if we did it for a month or two, at most, I think it’s more than just survivable. I think it’s actually incredibly positive. I’d go so far as to say, smart.
When we’re in Chicago we are able to manage time together and apart. We each have interests there that don’t involve the other. It’s balanced. But when we travel, that balance evaporates. By going places where we don’t speak the language, we are the only people we can talk to, creating this tightly bound, hermetically sealed echo chamber. That’s not the only pressure associated with the travel, but I think it’s the big one.
A month or two apart is a tonic for that, making sure that we have enough solo space so that the completely shared space doesn’t feel so claustrophobic. I think by taking that regular short break we’ll be able to sustain the travel part of the year for a longer, healthier period.
The most salutary side effect of divorcing and remarrying was the context shift around foibles. “That thing you do is really annoying and I’m going to have to tolerate it for the rest of my life” is entirely different from “That thing you do is really annoying and it’s a very small price to pay for all of the amazing things about you.” We came back together not because we’d figured out how to eliminate the things we found annoying about one another, but because we’d decided they didn’t matter. We’d intentionally chosen to accept them as the price to get our tickets punched. And you don’t get to be salty about your own decisions.
This experience has been a lot like that, a welcome reminder after all these years that we’re still making choices. For example, most of you know how very, very observant Dorothy is. Nothing gets past her. But in our 24/7 travel bubble, I have been the subject of that scrutiny in a way I’ve found oppressive. Jesus, just… look away for a minute.
But now that I’ve been fully responsible for myself for five months, I’ve recontextualized that scrutiny as labor-saving. If she’s not staring at me and asking whether that new thing is a skin tag, I have to. I now can’t wait to be under her watchful eye again.
Also, I’ve gained about twelve pounds feeding myself. I’m eating out in restaurants way more than I do when we’re together, traveling or home. And if I’m being honest, I’m also eating for comfort. There’s a Dorothy-sized hole in my life which I’ve been convinced can be filled with cake. Now we know how many doughnut holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall. Enough so that when I was trying on a shirt recently the shopgirl told me that the shirt fit fine, I just needed to lose weight. Ouch.
We were discussing this recently, and Dorothy summed it up in her usual pithy fashion: “I loved you when you left, but I miss you now.” Back atcha.
- Image generated by Google Gemini