11/4/14
Because when you get married you realize that some of the things you stood by as "your thing"--like wearing clothes beyond the point where they have holes, or telling poop jokes and various TMI to anyone who will listen, or fleeing social settings, or writing self aware blog posts about your life using exceedingly long sentences--those things maybe aren't really the best expression of you, they don't actually make you the person you are striving to be, and they could even be a somewhat misguided/annoying/gross. So you compromise. You accept that if your husband finds it offensive, then belching the alphabet while brushing your teeth is expendable. You agree to retire those shredded jeans (that honestly have at least another year of life in them if you just wore spandex underneath). You voluntarily hang out in groups. Just kidding. Who does that.
But the husband is out of town. [cackle] [evil hand rubbing] [cackle]
I went out and bought eco-friendly toilet paper. Became a temporary vegetarian. Stopped shaving my legs. Avoided human contact. Spent hours reading, working on art, watching TV, listening to podcasts. And it has been great. Except that I feel like a kid on the day after Halloween.
This morning I woke up with a guilt headache and tried to fix it by doing a Jillian Michaels work out with a wine bottle in place of a hand weight. Now this is not something that married, compromising Caren normally would do, but at least it’s something single, pre-compromising Caren normally wouldn’t do (got that?). It felt pretty good, but the guilt headache came back after I spent the next 7 hours watching hulu and coloring tiny white labels while listening to radio dramas.
I imagine that while I am off vacationing without him, he does much the same, becomes pre-compromising James: eating carnivorously, turning up the thermostat, and watching endless Youtube videos on things like famous jazz bassists and how to sharpen a knife with a broken piece of concrete. I will have to ask him whether or not he gets guilt headaches, too.
Comments