I Think I Want a Husband
But I don’t want to get married
I’ve been binge-watching Medium on Roku TV a lot lately. Thanks to the cleaning out my Drafts project I can now afford to sit back and chill a little bit. For those of you who don’t know, Medium is about, well, a medium. She uses her skill set as a freelancer (sound familiar?) to help others especially the DA and private investigators.
All throughout each episode are her three kids all blonde-haired girls and her husband Joe. Puberty is going to be fun for Joe in that house but I digress. I watch them as they chatter on about their respective days when they drop into bed at 10pm or even later depending upon just how hectic their day has been.
I watch the chaos of the morning kitchen table as cereal is dumped into bowls and yogurt is scooped and juice is poured. They talk over the tops of the children's heads as to who will drive the kids to school and who will drop off the dry cleaning or make the dentist appointments. In between, they’re each at their respective jobs doing their thing. Yes, they call each other throughout the day.
With so much togetherness I am frankly astonished that anyone gets anything done.
Putting aside the chaos and confusion and the hustle and bustle I like the interaction between Allison and Joe. Are they the perfect couple? Not by a long stretch. I couldn’t be married to Allison and it has nothing to do with her abilities. She’s just too hyper. Flighty even. The house phone or her cell phone is always ringing in the middle of the night. She’s not a cop or a firefighter. There’s nothing so important that her entire family has to be woken up night after night because there’s been another crime somewhere in this city.
If I were Joe I’d have lost my shit long before now.
And Joe is an enabler. He doesn’t put his foot down for his own mental health and or the well-being of his own kids by not telling his wife no 2am phone calls, no bloody crime scene photos are to be delivered to the house, etc. Accommodating Joe. He has a full-time plus job as an engineer. The majority of breadwinning is done by him along with household work and errands.
Couldn’t be me.
Thus the not wanting to be married thing. But I do miss the rest. The conversations. The dinners together. The discussing of anything and everything from world events to local politics to yes even how our days went. The hand-holding. The snuggles in front of the TV. Spoons in bed.
Running errands together. Going to concerts and museums and movies. Together. I’ve really started missing the “together” part lately. The knowing that there was Someone there. The intimacy of a real and solid relationship.
I think the world would feel less heavy if I weren’t always carrying it alone.