Since June 23, Ben has been in San Francisco doing an
internship auditing for Deloitte. It has
been an awesome opportunity for him and he has fallen in love with the
city. Unfortunately, I had to stay in
Hawaii to take some classes in order to graduate within the time allotted to me
at this university. So when all is said
and done, we will have been apart for about two months, minus one week when my
parents, little sister and I visited him over the 4th of July. (We couldn’t leave Ben alone on his favorite
holiday!) We are happy to announce that
Ben received an offer to work full time at Deloitte in San Francisco beginning
Fall 2014 and we are extremely excited to start our new city lives there next
year! So all this time apart, as difficult and sad as it has been, was totally
worth it. Ben comes home to me in one
week and as you probably suspect, I cannot wait! Over the past several weeks, I have learned
some things about being without a spouse…
The Pros and Cons to
being husbandless for two months:
Pros
No one to tell you that your outfit is too crazy (Note this
is also in the cons list)
The toilet seat is NEVER left up.
He can’t judge you when you get a speeding ticket ‘cause he
wasn’t there.
You can watch the Mindy Project and laugh your head off at
stupid girly humor without being judged
You can have girls’ nights without feeling bad about kicking
him out of the apartment for the night
You can watch chick flicks at any time
You can sing at the top of your lungs in the car, in the
shower, while cleaning the house. You
can belt songs from musicals, you can pretend you are Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj,
Katy Perry, or whoever else you so desire to sing like. No one will get annoyed with you, laugh at
you, or be embarrassed for you….except maybe your neighbors on the other side
of the paper thin walls, or the person stopped at the same intersection as you
who can see that you are rocking out to the radio…alone…
No one will care if you don’t have meals planned ever, and
you make whatever weird concoction you come up with by staring at the fridge
for a couple of seconds. Let’s just say
while I think I am coming up genius combinations of foods, Ben says, “Oh that
sounds interesting. I am glad you like it.” Which implies “no I would
not like you to recreate that when I am home.”
No boy food (junk food/ice cream/cookies/etc.) in the house.
You can wear your retainer to bed and no one will laugh at
your lisp!
I am getting a taste of what life might be like when Ben is
working during the busy season at his accounting firm. Hello 80-hour weeks! (yikes,
this shouldn’t really be on the pros list…)
I’m being reminded of how much I love and appreciate Ben and
how incredibly blessed I am to have him in my life. It’s not that I don’t already know these
things, but being together all the time sometimes makes you forget how special
the other person is, because they are part of your everyday life and you
sometimes take that for granted.
Absence truly makes the heart grow fonder.
Cons
Can’t open jars with tight lids
No one to squash roaches and chase spiders
No one to cuddle with. (I use a pillow to remedy this. It’s not as good as a warm human body, but
hugging a pillow comes close enough given the circumstances and it helps me sleep. At least the pillow doesn’t complain about
how hot it is and tells you to get off.)
No one to tell you that your outfit is too crazy (Note, this
is also in the pros list)
No one to bake for when you are craving sweets, but you
don’t want to admit it, so you make it under the pretense that you are being
nice and thoughtful for your spouse…yeah. No more of that…
You might make some dents in the car…really, really BAD
unfixable dents…sorry Ben!!
No one is there to comfort you when you get a speeding
ticket.
You get a speeding ticket, but usually you wouldn’t be
driving, ‘cause usually the boy drives and he would have got the ticket, not
you! (Or maybe as the more responsible driver, he wouldn’t be speeding in the
first place? Maybe?)
Geez, I got into a lot of car trouble without Ben…
No one to adventure with.
No one to fix your bike for you. (Wow, I am really dependent
on Ben. Maybe I should learn how to do
these things for myself!)
Going to the beach alone can be pretty boring.
Saturdays actually end up being really boring.
Sundays are even worse.
In-person conversations > phone conversations. Neither of us have ever been fans of phone
talking. You’d think we would be used to
it. Most of our dating experience
occurred over some kind of distance. He
lived in Salt Lake and I lived in Provo for over 9 months of our relationship,
I went home for 2 summers and we were an 11 hour drive away from each other,
and I lived in London for 2 months, while he was in Denver and Salt Lake. But after almost 2 years of living under the
same roof, I guess we kind of forgot what long distance relationships are like.
And now we are remembering that they
suck.
Tips for any wives with husbands who might leave them for more than a week:
Never twist the cap to a jar too tight
Keep one of your spouses larger shoes handy for bug
squashing. I use Ben’s Clark ‘s boot
that he left behind... (Hopefully you
aren’t reading this Ben…)
Make sure you have an extra pillow (to snuggle with).
Get your fill of chick flicks while you can! Don’t watch
movies he would want to watch. Use this
chance to get in all the movies he is sure to say no to for your movie nights!
Try all those food experiments you’ve been dying to sample.
Almond butter on yams for dinner? Yum. (yams are currently my favorite food…I
can literally eat them for breakfast lunch and dinner. This would probably not fly with Ben at home. Or at least he definitely would not jump on the yam bandwagon.)
Have girls' nights! As much as possible!
What an awesome opportunity to get super good grades without the distraction of your good looking significant other!
Have girls' nights! As much as possible!
What an awesome opportunity to get super good grades without the distraction of your good looking significant other!
Talk on the phone everyday.
Look at pictures of you and him often.
Hopefully none of you married people ever have to separate
for this long. I cannot say that I
recommend it. Only one more week!