Shelley Scribbles

Those who know me and read my blog already know how I revel in being alone. Growing up without brothers and sisters, I learned how to entertain myself, and how to be alone without being lonely. The truth is, if I spend too much time around people, without some time for myself, I get exhausted. This even extends to the person with whom I am most myself, my husband.

Because we are an international couple, not much of our lives overlaps. We don’t really have friends as a couple. There are my friends and his – and while we have spent time with both – we don’t really socialize together. Our work can take us away from each other all day – me with early morning classes and him with evening gigs. We are rarely both home at 5:00 for dinner. Even when we are spending a lazy day at home, vegging out in front of the tv, he is in the living room watching Korean tv and I will be in the bedroom watching something on the computer.

Truly, this type of relationship suits me fine. I don’t think I could be married to someone who would demand a lot of togetherness. I suffocate easily, and not everyone gets that. I love Bong because he does, and because he is built the same way.

Still, for all our separateness, there is a connection that makes us feel like we are always together. It never feels like it has disappeared even when we are fighting about something stupid, when we are catching up, lost in a conversation over a bottle of soju, or when we are physically apart.

Right now, Bong is in Nepal. He is graduating next semester, and I decided to give him a trip there as a gift. The gift was also for myself. Two weeks of being totally alone in the apartment, with no other commitments, was my idea of bliss – pure and total freedom. All I had to do was keep the cat alive and blog – and I have pretty much spent the two weeks as I planned, keeping myself company like I used to do as a kid, lost in my thoughts, sometimes going the whole day without speaking to anyone. It was just what I needed.

Bong was due to come home tomorrow, but for weather reasons, has been delayed a couple of days. I know that I am starting to really miss him when the aloneness takes on a shade of sadness, when I take to the tv to fill my thoughts. I am ready for him to come home now. Still, how lucky I am to have married someone who knows how to keep me company while letting me be as alone as I need to be.