Mary comes home tomorrow from New York. I can't wait. Since Graham went off to college August 10, we've been together very little, between her travels and mine and my COVID, which drove her from the nest more quickly than we anticipated almost three weeks ago. I realize that I blogged about this a few days ago in passing but it nonetheless remains the most salient fact of my day to day existence right now.
We were last apart for this long when I was in Moscow in 97-98 working on my dissertation and we were just newlyweds -- which was hard in its own way -- and also a little when George Sr was in his last months back in 2009. In fact, I remember being alone then in Princeton and being rather sad, first and foremost about the loss of Mary's dad, who was a very good guy and a wonderful grandfather, but also about being alone in the house in Princeton, while also packing up all of our stuff to move to Chapel Hill, an unenviable task under any circumstances.
I, in short, am not used to being alone all the time. I have gotten through it, to be sure. I have found new things to watch on TV, played tennis with zero guilt, cooked a bunch of stuff in my wok which has extended into 3-4 meals and also a linguine with clam sauce which never happens when Mary's around. I've even gotten to bed earlier because I haven't been waiting for her to make her way upstairs. I've gone to AA meetings, Yale alumni Zoom calls and a Democratic fundraiser. I've used more glasses than I usually would because I know I have extra room in the dishwasher. In short, I've filled the empty time. But it has gotten very old.
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