"Parting is such sweet sorrow. . ."

(William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene 2)

My husband is out of town on business this week. I love it when he goes out of town for a few days. Yes, you heard that right. I love it. I. LOVE. IT.

"What?" you cry, dismayed, thinking me the worst wife ever. "What did you say?"

Now hold up a sec. I don't mean that like you think I mean that. Here's the thing: my Dave has been gone just over 24 hours and, already, I'm really excited for him to come home! 

"If you're so excited for him to come back," you ask, "why do you say you 'love it' that he left?Did something bad happen at home? Are the kids being rotten? Did the basement flood?"

No, none of that. None at all. Things are running rather smoothly, in fact. But the reason I am not only glad he left but am counting the days to his return is this: his absence has made me appreciate his presence. I'm entirely jazzed that, come Thursday night, I get him back!

It's not like the old days, when we had babies and toddlers and I needed him to hurry home because Mama needed a SANITY BREAK. (Besides, I've long since accepted that sanity is not something I can achieve for any extended period, regardless of home staffing.) We're in our forties now (although I'm just barely there. Only six months in. Yes, for some reason, I felt the need to clarify that, LOL.) Now our kids are older and fairly self-sufficient and completing way more chores than their activities create (woot!) But we are busy people, and in the day-to-day of our careers, hobbies, and extended family commitments, we don't connect on the sweet my-lover-is-my-best-friend level as often as we should. Yes, sometimes in the evening we might glance up from our various e-readers and tablets to comment on the yumtastical goodness Guy Fieri is tasting on the Food Network's Diners, Drive-ins, & Dives (my True Love's go-to, wind-down-from-the-day choice in television programming), but there isn't a lot of conversation most nights . . . or even eye contact, to be honest.

When you've been married for 18-1/2 years, it gets pretty easy to construct your own little island of solitude within the marriage dynamic. Life is distracting. Sometimes, it's darn near exhausting. The way life and its cast of characters pull you and your partner in separate directions is both frustrating and strangely addictive. All too often, the typical evening scenario finds us collapsing into our cushy chair of choice in front of the idiot box, attempting to let someone else think for us for a while. We spend the evening hours sort-of-watching a collection of TV personalities "relate" to insignificant strangers for our entertainment, while barely actually interacting with our flesh-and-blood-and-present One And Only. Yes, we might occasionally glance across the room when one of us laughs at something, and in that spare moment of connection, grin, because we like to see our partner happy. But most of the time, we're unknowingly lonely, "missing" each other while living the day-to-day, monotony of modern life... until one of us is called to travel.

When he goes away (or I do) for a day or two or, like in this case, four, we get to miss each other for real. And that is awesome. 

"Awesome?" you ask, bewildered. 

Yes, awesome! because, at least in our case, absence may not make the heart grow fonder, but it reminds the heart of that with which it is already fond. An unemotionally-charged separation, like traveling for work or fun-with-friends, is a good reminder that what we have within our marriage partnership is not only GOOD, but worth missing--and even better: worth remembering and worth LIVING, in a more connective state, when we reunite.

Yes, I'm glad he left: because I can hardly wait until he gets back!

To that end, I'm emailing him a link to this post, complete with a hug (note the goatee: that's my man!) Even though we'll most likely have a quick phone call tonight, I want him to know that I'm thinking about him today... and I'm counting the hours until he's home again.