The recent travel schedule of the dreadfully charming Mr. Right would put a touring rock band to shame. Vegas. China. California. Paris. Germany. England. New York. He’s become a Globetrotter and the list just keeps dribbling on.

All this distance has got me thinking.

It used to be I was weighted by his absence, carrying it in my shoulders and thighs and the small of my back. I’d sprint to every phone call. I’d send faxes to his hotel rooms. I would, with a sentimental sigh, allow his stinky running shoes to sprawl another day across the living room floor.

This melodrama of distance only lasted so long. Soon enough, I relinquished my insistence upon driving him to the airport at 4 a.m. I no longer sent him raw e-love late at night. And I actually kind of (dare I say it) looked forward to quality time with Girlfriends, guiltless late hours at work, and solo evenings in bed with John Irving, Breyer’s, and Black Butte Porter.

Now that we have the Bungle of Joy, the drama of distance has changed yet again. The single parent shtick is a drag–even when you have, like I do, amazingly involved (grand)parents to help. I don’t know how REAL single parents do it except for the obvious fact that they just do, as there’s no friendly return policy on even the best models of babies.

So the feel of long distance between Mr. Right and me changes in step with our relationship: Early on it was that intense ache, when it still seemed he could step out of my life forever. And then a mellowing drama as distance became a fresh staccato in our long tone of togetherness. And now these stints of parenthood without him swing precipitously from the heady Supermom feeling on good days, to the frantic exhaustion of “I can’t do this alone!” on bad ones.

I think it’s important to add that these days I DO miss Mr. R when he’s gone, and NOT just because I need a break from parenting, but because he’s my favorite person on the planet. And so I really was looking forward to his homecoming last Thursday from a business trip in Europe. Yet that didn’t prevent me from (after a quick kiss) sprinting out the door the moment he arrived home.

Odd, I know, but I had a writers’ conference to attend for the weekend (it was WONDERFUL, by the way), and while I could have spent one night with my long-lost Mr. R and driven to the conference in the morning, I opted for a night in a B-n-B. Why? Because it was my very first weekend totally on my own, away from both the Bungle and Mr. R. It made me feel like a regular, autonomous person again. (sigh)

Did I miss my daughter and my well-traveled husband over the weekend? Mmm…honestly, no. I was so intent upon luxuriating in my writer’s skin that the more accurate (more shameful) question is: Did I even remember they exist?

I see that now, more than ever in my life, I cozy up daily with these intense, baffling, harmonious contradictions. I love being with my family…but I CHERISH being with my self.

And here I sit in a café on Whidbey Island–the conference over and done–stealing a few more moments alone, typing away my last bit of freedom, trying to hold on to the sensation that I’m not just a mother and a wife, but a woman, an individual, a life.

(For more on this topic, read my Top Ten List about long distance relationships.)

originally posted on March 4, 2007 at Happily Even After.

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