It Is Awfully Easy To Be Hardboiled About Everything In the Daytime...

That's a quote from The Sun Also Rises by my old buddy Hemingway. The end of it is "but at night it is another thing." Nights have been tough on me this week. I don't know what it is, but I'm feeling lonesome. For the last 2 years I have had a new woman in my life, and to say that we are close is an understatement. When we first got together I was amazed at how much she wanted to be near me. Truth be told it was even a little annoying at first. All my life I have been for the most part a very contented loner. As time passed I have grown to love how she is always beside me. I move from one room to another while changing tasks, and within minutes she is beside me, happy smiling, shrugging with a little bit of embarrassment, laughing at herself "Sorry, I have to be where you are." We talk about our 'old lives' a lot. In her old life, her ex-husband was absent, dereliction of duty. She went to bed alone every night. It had been months since they'd shared a bed, or even the same floor, and it had started innocently enough. She was tired, he wasn't. So he would play video games, wind up sleeping all day and staying up all night. They passed each other like ghosts in their home, gradually losing all connectedness. In my old life there was no flame. Our sex life had filtered down to once a month. My ex had one week out of every month where she was eager to engage me. I came to call it sex week out of resentment, she called it sex week out of endearment. I was on fire all the time. I lost sleep. I tossed and turned and had there been brambles nearby I would have thrown myself into them like the saints of old. At it's worst, I waited 7 months at a time without sexual contact. In order to survive I cultivated a disdain for sex. I focussed on the negative whenever desire would take me. I got resentful. I won't delve into it, but I'm sure with imagination you can determine for yourself the more distasteful side of sex. And it worked. I was able to curb my desire. So well in fact that towards the end of our relationship, I took control back of if and when we would have sex. It made her furious. My only stipulation was that I wouldn't have sex during sex week. I would have sex anywhere, anytime, just not sex week. It made her furious. 1 month went by. Then 2. She was angry with me. I thought of all the nights I laid awake tossing and turning, batted away, the 7 month stretches of sexual starvation. I grew hateful. She was unable to pass the same tests she'd put me through. I felt an imbalance. My children, a love for them that is indefinable kept me there til there was nothing left. Long story short, with lessons learned in our old lives, I have made commitments in my new life. Not written or even vocalized. I go to bed when she goes to bed. We make love, a lot. We hold each other as we fall asleep. If I'm not tired I wait until she's asleep. I get up earlier than I want to so I can have breakfast with her. I never intend to leave her alone when I'm in the same house, because I know she has scars there. And for a few years now I haven't. Here's the freight train surprise that I didn't see coming however. I live half of my life in a remote northern camp. I don't care about alone time when I'm at home because I get my fair share up here. Years ago this was a dream of mine. Pure isolation, a world of thought, away from the things of man. When I first started the job it was Utopian. I only get to see my children for a week at a time, and this job permits me to be with them 24/7 during that week if they need me. When I'm not with her, I am with them. My oldest daughter and I share an infinity for horror and the macabre. My middle daughter and I love science, and science fiction. My boy's imagination is completely wild. Last week we all had several conversations on the nature of dark matter, perception, space-time. They are brilliant. My life in my week off is incredibly full, and I have no need or desire to seek the alone time I used to be so desperate for. But I have grown accustomed to the omnipresent companionship of my lady, and my kids. So much so that the silence is overwhelming in my room at night. Last night I listened to Dr. Wayne Dyer to try to calm myself down for Christ's sake! I don't recall having ever felt lonesome before in my life, but I'm starting to dread the nights here. The independent drifter side of me, the outlaw and the cowboy part are telling me there's something wrong with loving somebody this much. They're telling me I'm addicted, hooked bad and it can't be good. The romantic in me is telling me that maybe this is what love should be. It should hurt to be apart. Being near her should feel like a long draw on a smooth cigarette after a marathon of love making. Being away from my children should rip my soul apart. So to the jist of this. I used to be a friend of solitude. It now overwhelms me, and I don't know if it's something I need to cure, or if it means I'm cured.