Tonight

My husband is away tonight.  The house is quiet.  The children are safely tucked in bed, the doors are locked, the chores done.  I've worked hard, today, trying to wear myself out.  It worked.  My mind is tired from learning and planning and caring.  My body is tired from exercising, from moving, from breathing.  Sadly, the tired doesn't do enough to distract me from the lonely, and the walls of my happy home echo the sound of my beating heart back to me.

Three and a half years.  That's how long we've been married.  Three and a half beautiful years.  We've spent one night apart, before.  That time, I was the one away.  Somehow, it was easier.  Everything was different, and so the absence of my partner was not so starkly outlined.  This time, I am the one left behind.  This time, I am the one that must face our empty bedroom and cold bed.

We've never fought, my husband and I.  We talk about everything, share everything.  We are gentle with each other, each understanding the other's struggles with the rest of life.  We cannot afford to fight.  Everything else is too hard.  We need each other.  At the end of every day, he is there for me.  At the end of every day, I get to be there for him.  I tell him we'll be okay.  He loves that I put my cold feet on his legs.  We kiss and cuddle and pray and wish each other sweet dreams. 

I want to get comically hysterical, tonight.  "I can't warm up the sheets by myself," I'll screech.  "My body doesn't work that way!"  He would laugh at me.  It doesn't make any sense to screech to myself.  It doesn't have the same impact in print.

I've braved the day by myself.  It was, all things considered, a very good day.  I got everything done that I wanted to.  I even held Family Home Evening, during which the Schprid and I made homemade peanut butter cookies, and sat and ate them with mugs of cold milk.  I got both kids put to bed by myself.  I even sat and watched an Audrey Hepburn movie and had as much girly alone time as I can take.  It's time to go to bed.  But I don't want to face that big bed all by myself, and so I sit and write, and hope my husband is happy and warm, and I eagerly count the hours until his return.