So J was away on a business trip for a week. I stocked up on food before he left, and with the exception of a workout and meeting up for coffee with my favorite teacher from high school (who happened to be in town for a conference), I did not leave the house all week, and I barely talked on the phone.
I wrote, and then I wrote some more, and then I thought about writing, watched TV for a bit (Oh my gosh! TERRIERS!!!!), and wrote again. I let go of schedules. I slept when I felt like sleeping and ate when I remembered to.
I missed J like crazy, but I was at a point in my manuscript where I really needed the time to be so completely lost in my thoughts. I needed to think about my characters more than I thought about real people, and it was nice to have a one-woman stay-at-home writing retreat. It felt indulgent to focus so completely on my work.
I did, however, end up a little sleep deprived. Argo kept waking up at 3AM and running to the door to wait for J. I like to think he’d been dreaming that J had come home. And Stella, in J’s absence, felt the need to sleep directly on my legs, so I woke up every morning with the craziest pins and needles in my feet.
And then, two days after the coffee filters, radishes, and chocolate ran out, just before the three of us started to get completely squirrely, it was time to go pick J up at the airport, and I realized on a whole new level just how important it is to have someone to come home to after spending all that time in my head. The one-woman (and two dogs) stay-at-home writing retreat is a nice-ish place to visit, but if I lived there, I think I’d start getting really weird.
I know the feeling! I spent 4 days alone locked up in a house with just 1 dog, writing and thinking, and I thought I’d go nuts. Couldn’t sleep, didn’t want to eat, weird.
Ha, I feel the same way when M is out of town. It’s nice to have the alone time for a while, but by the time he gets home I always think it’s really good that I’m not left to my own devices all the time.
This actually sounds kind of awesome! (well, not the sleep deprivation part). And only because J came home at the end :)
Having someone to come home to or someone that comes home to you IS a nice feeling. The pins and needles from dogs sleeping on your legs? Not so much!