Word Count: 262<\/p>\n

So now I have it, the freedom to take trips, to sleep on the couch all night if I want to, the ice cream for dinner and leftover pizza for breakfast and candy for lunch. All the routines and schedules and expecteds drift off as the regulations of marriage fade, all that dependence and waiting and having to smile.<\/p>\n

I lived alone several times in between roommates and live-in lovers and two husbands, and it\u2019s never been a sad lonely time for me. Never needed any great adjustment, no bulk-buying of tissues, any desperate calls to friends in the night. Never even needed chocolate for solace.<\/p>\n

Life alone is not as alone as living with someone who doesn\u2019t care that you\u2019re there. It\u2019s only extra underwear to wash and more shirts to iron. It\u2019s twice the work for a widower, they say, and half the work for a widow. Alone is ironing a half hour before you\u2019re going out, after you\u2019ve pulled your selection from the smash of blouses in the closet.<\/p>\n

Did you know that dust looks the same at two months as it does at two weeks? And that unnecessary dusting was done because we didn\u2019t want to look lazy and slovenly to someone who wouldn\u2019t have noticed the dust anyway? It\u2019s a rush to not dust every Saturday. To not vacuum until the crumbs make squeaking noises as you walk across the kitchen floor.<\/p>\n

I miss him, yes. But yet, I don\u2019t miss him at all, because I have me, and me doesn\u2019t ask much at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Word Count: 262 So now I have it, the freedom to take trips, to sleep on the couch all night if I want to, the ice cream for dinner and leftover pizza for breakfast and candy for lunch. All the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[22],"class_list":["post-781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-psychological-realism","tag-psychological-realism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=781"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":823,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781\/revisions\/823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}