What I Miss About Being Married

It’s been a little over six months since our marriage was dissolved as the courts like to call it. It’s definitely been a period of adjustment for all of us and it continues to be as we cycle through the first year of school, holidays, activities, etc… as a two household family. While I’m in a much better place now than I was a year ago, there are still some things that I miss about being married. Of course, there’s the typical things like clogged toilets, bats almost flying in the house, and ironing that I miss. Matt was always in charge of ironing and unclogging toilets, and if that bat HAD flown in the house, AR and I would’ve been sleeping somewhere else that night.

To be honest, while Matt always did all the landscaping and yardwork, I don’t really mind doing it because it gives me a sense of accomplishment that I can do it on my own… although I still haven’t mastered the art of weedeating... and he still does a much better job than I do. It still takes me probably 3-4x longer than if he would’ve done it but still, it gets done and I’m proud of myself for it! It also makes me wonder if I’d helped him with the yardwork, although he really didn’t need my help, if that would’ve helped things. We always operated separately, rarely as a team because we both knew the other was able to fulfill their “tasks” on their own. Still, there’s other things that you probably wouldn’t think of that I miss as well. 

Accountability-When Matt was in the house, and even when my mom was living with us, I was very consistent on getting AR to bed on time and she rarely ever slept with me. Now, it seems like a huge victory if she’s in bed before 7:30PM and most nights when she comes back after being at Matt’s, she somehow finds her way into my bed. I don’t know what it is about having someone else in the house but it helped to keep me on task as much as AR.

Eating a variety of food-I used to complain that I never got leftovers when I was married but now that there’s only one adult and one child in our house, I get PLENTY of leftovers. In fact, I’ve been eating meatloaf every day for the past week. Seriously, I can cook one meal a week and that’s enough for us

Roller coasters-Luckily, AR is small enough now that I can handle all the rides she likes for now. Once she gets older though, I have a feeling she’ll be a roller coaster riding machine and I’m not so sure I’ll be able to handle all that.

Milk-Here’s the irony… one of the biggest arguments we used to have would be over milk. Matt could drink a gallon of milk in a day and it would drive me nuts. Now that it’s just me and AR, we don’t even get through half a gallon before it expires.

Writing-Prior to the dissolution of our marriage, I was a writing machine, putting out a book every other month. Granted, I probably wrote as an outlet, but I'm very disappointed in myself that I haven't really found my "mojo" again. Sure, I've still wrote and published a few books but the drive isn't there any more. I don't want to hang it up because I have so many stories left untold so I just have to tell myself it's okay to just get to it when I get to it. I don't write for the money, I write for the stories so in due time, it'll all come out. 

It's funny how when life throws you a total curve ball, you only think about the "big" stuff that will change. I mean when we first decided to get divorced, one of the many thoughts that popped into my head was who will mow my yard, how do I take a mower to the store to get it maintained. I thought I would have all this free time to write after I put AR to bed at exactly 7PM. Then we have a night like tonight where we laid in bed, talking about our days and randomness then I look at the clock and it's already 8PM! We tend to forget about the small things, that add up to big things. Still, overall, I think it's safe to say all three of us are doing well, just learning as we go and adjusting to life like everyone does when things change but boy oh boy am I sick of meatloaf!