Home Alone

Is there such a thing as newly-wed syndrome? I am so attached to my husband, I find it hard to ignore him, leave him alone or enjoy a night out with the girls. Sometimes, I feel like that over eager puppy from Tom and Jerry. “Can we play, huh? Can we? Can we go outside, huh? Please, please, can we, can we?”

“Farah! Sit. Good girl.” He pats me on the head and runs away to his Cigar smoking room. (I have to add that to the non-smoking zones in the house, since the issuing of my health revolution edict of February 2007)

Usually, once left alone, I am eventually forced to go find something interesting to do, like jog, paint, blog about him or pester my sister. It’s actually quite healthy for us to spend time apart, I’m told… Whatever.

I mean, I can handle a few hours of alone time, but 2 DAYS! That’s got to be challenging, for anyone. A few weeks ago, I got so overwhelmed by my spare time, I didn’t know what to do with myself. This is not to say that I had nothing to do, I had lots of things to entertain me. I was excited about everything, like a confused grasshopper with absolutely no focus. The reason, for all this spare time? Nayef was in Riyadh for the weekend, and I had nothing to stare at…

I realized just how much my pathetic list of activities revolved around my husband. Not to say that it was a bad thing. I loved hanging out together and planning every dinner, every movie, and sharing with him, every single random thought that popped into my head, even the ones he’d rather not hear. But he gets me, and it’s lovely to talk to someone, who’s almost always with you on the same wave length.

The weekend he was away, the deathly still silence woke me up at least three times in the middle of the night. It was so damn quiet, not a touch of wind or rain, no AC or heater working and Whisker (the husband substitute) was as quiet as a mouse. The 2^nd time I woke up at 3:30 am I felt for Whisker for a comforting hug in the dark, and found she wasn’t in bed. Immediately I jumped up and turned on the table lamp, yelling her name…there she was. Sitting like the sphinx, Whisker sat across my row of shoes, nose dedicatedly embedded into my bronze heels. This dog has a shoe fetish, and even at 3:30 am she shamelessly got out of bed in the pitch black night to go dabble in some shoe-tasting.

I stuffed my face back into my pillow, annoyed at being awake at such a scary time of night, missing his gentle snoring that I had cursed/recorded and threatened him with, so often before.

It really sucked, but I suppressed my separation-anxiety and tried to have some dignity, rather than call Nayef every 25 minutes to ask stupid questions like “Having fun?” referring to his excruciating time in Riyadh. Instead, I kept myself busy by reading and watching Oprah’s 20^th Anniversary DVD which miraculously showed up in the mail, the day he was leaving. Watching all the emotional and sad episodes on Oprah without a boy around can actually be fun, you can cry, sob and wipe your tearful eyes dramatically, without someone peering into your puffy face and asking you, “Are you serious??!! You’re crying?” It’s very cathartic and tension releasing, without the mockery, of course.

Another thing that releases tension and passes the time is singing! But I can’t sing Karaoke when Nayef is around because he makes faces and never joins in. That’s why, although I love doing that, I will only sing when I am absolutely alone. I don’t even do it when Emily is around for fear that she might want to participate, she apparently won BD 5 in a magic sing-a-long competition and enjoys karaoke. My secret stash of microphones and 25 Karaoke DVDs that I’ve gathered over the past five years would only come out after she went to her room in the evening. So that weekend, I sang and sang, with Whisker as my only audience, (I made her solemnly swear that she would never speak of it). By the time I had gone through 27 songs, I had a soar throat and felt a little light headed, so I had to stop.

By the end of the two days I had kept up my self-restraint so well, that when Nayef came back, he almost thought I didn’t miss him. I just smiled and said, “Oh, you know, I was busy with my mom, and went out with friends I hadn’t seen in ages.” I’m such a liar, I didn’t even feel like going out. But he didn’t know that I was a loser who stayed at home, lit candles and bonded with Whisker, Oprah and my vocal cords. Next time I’ll have to do something more exciting…but in the mean time, I’m going to enjoy the syndrome.