Who isn’t trying to take the high road these days? I think most of us are, just by getting out of bed. The fact that I live with someone is a very good thing. I wonder how my days would unwind if there was no one here watching me. Yes, I said watching me. But it isn’t my husband who is watching me. It’s me watching my husband who I think is watching me.
As complex as that sounds, I know you get it. We create a false narrative that arises from the Catholic-school-guilt or the My-mom-is-a-Depression-Era-baby-guilt or the If-I’m-not-productive-I’m-a-slug-guilt. In my case, it’s the “my-husband-is-around-here-somewhere- so-I-better-look-like-I’m-doing-something”….story.
I convinced myself this was just all in my head. That he didn’t really mind that the laundry was in the baskets for three weeks because I’m wearing the same fuzzy Harry Potter Pajamas most days. That he didn’t really mind the notebooks in every room in the house because I pick up a pen and write when the spirit moves….which could be any hour of any day. That the guest room is now my other other extra room to hide-in, hoard-in, hibernate-in at designated nap time every, single damn day.
This morning, as we were waking to the birds singing in the trees, the wind blowing the pink dogwood petals softly to the ground, the sun peeking out through the high branches of the tulip poplars. My husband whispered to me for the first time in 35 years: “Your hair smells good!”
So…………I guess he does notice. Showering might be a new rule. It was an old rule but somehow got lost in the coronashuffle.
In the alternative, I have noticed that my husband works very hard to stay out of my hair. He is retired. So there’s no working from home during the pandemic for him. He is free to create his own world within the confines of our house, yard, driveway, and mailbox. Picking up sticks is one of his fortes this spring. He is definitely running out of ideas. And I won’t tell a lie. I like being in my workspace with no one around. I’ve been working from home for eons, this new normal with someone else here 24-7 isn’t my favorite. Again, my own mentality, but I spend a lot of time in my own head. No one else wants to be there, trust me.
So there was a bit of hope in the news yesterday.
Tomorrow the golf courses are opening in our state with very strict regulations. And mine are even stricter. Basically, I read the rules for golf course opening and was pretty surprised, in a good way. Only one man to a cart, no touching the flagstick, the ball will not fall into the hole, only handling your own clubs, staying 6 feet or more apart from all other players at all times, and lots of sanitizing, lots and lots of sanitizing. So, it sounds like a walk in the park. Which is what we have been doing occasionally, anyway…walking in the park. But boys will be boys. I’m sorry, they are knuckleheads. They take pride in their knuckleheadedness. So I have one strict rule which was to be the title of this blog, but I thought better of it.
Cathy’s Rule for Coronagolf:
I had to tell my husband: “You are not allowed to touch your friends’ balls.”
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Cathy is the author of Showering with Nana: Confessions of a Serial Caregiver and