I hadn't until I came to Alaska.
I lived with my parents for 23 1/2 years. I commuted to college because it was so close to home. Minus the one semester I decided I needed to move out and live half an hour away (they totally paid my rent)...and I still went home every weekend, mostly because I was working at a restaurant nearer to home.
I didn't want to live on my own because I didn't want to be responsible for all of that adulthood stuff. Bills? Utilities? No, thanks. I can barely take care of that stuff now.
The "Where are you going at 9pm? It's already dark out!" and "Why didn't you come home until 2am?" questions I got from my parents were an even trade for them paying my way if you ask me. I kept a 3.9 GPA, they didn't ask too many questions.
Then, I got married and we moved here.
I remember the first night he left me alone so he could do a night jump. We'd been in our new Alaskan home for about 3 days. I remember thinking, "I cannot do this, I cannot possibly stay here one night by myself, let alone months during deployment."
Yeah, I got over that real fast.
For the first deployment, he was only gone 4 months. It was rough. It was Alaskan wintertime. It was, yeah, pretty God-awful. But I did it.
By the time he came home, I just wanted companionship again.
He didn't leave for more than a night or two until a year later when he went to a training for 2 weeks. Again, I thought I was going to die.
By the time we moved to our new house, he'd taken up the occasional hunting/fishing trip and I was used to him being gone at night once in awhile.
Then he went to JRTC (deployment training) and that was a rough 6 weeks for me because I knew it was leading up to THE BIG ONE.
And so, when he deployed last December, I was prepared. I knew what it'd be like to be alone.
I was NOT prepared for what seemingly-never-ending freedom would taste like.
Not freedom in a "I does what I wants" kinda way. Freedom in a "nobody's watching me so I'm not gonna do dishes, fold clothes, or clean the bathrooms" kinda way.
A few weeks ago, I spent most of Friday night doing dishes and straightening up because the cable company was sending someone over to look at the connection. When someone does this, they have to go back and forth from t.v. to t.v., modem to box, etc, etc...criss-crossing all over the house. So the entire house had to look like someone civilized had been living in it.
It was stressful.
And while the guy was here on a Saturday morning (making sure I was set up to watch my Sunday night line-up), I cleaned the stove...and did some dishes...and Cloroxed some windowsills (WTF, right?), because being perched on the couch with my laptop (my usual position) would've made me look lazy and unproductive.
This was the most stressful 45 minutes of my week...waiting for this cable dude to leave so I could stop doing stuff. Exhausting.
Something tells me that living with another person again is going to take some adjusting.
Lately, I've found myself menu-planning, doing dishes, and putting away laundry on a regular basis. It's strange. Oddly enough, Scott is doing the same. He's going through things, getting rid of stuff, unpacking, organizing, talking about putting the Christmas tree up. HE CLEANED THE BATHROOM WHILE I TOOK A NAP LAST WEEK, and then asked when was the last time I had cleaned the tub (probably summer 2011..it's a giant garden tub we never use.)
He also started putting together a Salvation Army box with things he doesn't want anymore.
There's nothing I like better than purging stuff I've been hoarding for no apparent reason, so that's good. "Pack-ratted-ness" is not a quality I admire.
What about you? Are you insanely messy on your own? Does your husband/boyfriend/etc hold you accountable? Do you, ohmygosh, have kids who you have to set an example for?
