Setting turned to "off"

It turns out I’m useless without my husband. He’s been in Colorado for a conference for way too long.

I’m late to work because there’s no one to push me out of bed. I lay on the couch watching TV and have no one to talk to. I’m unmotivated to make hoola hoops and stare at my materials blankly.

I love the guy—I do truly—but I had no idea how necessary he was to my basic survival skills. I’m bored with eating. There’s no reason to cook. I went to the grocery store to buy milk and turkey without him. It’s been awful. I bought a tube of cookie dough to make me feel better, but I haven’t even been motivated enough to eat that. How sad is it that I can’t eat cookie dough? This is truly a terrible time in my life.

I call his cell phone three times a day. “I miss you. I wish you’d come home.” And then I imagine the other conference-goers not having such whiny spouses. Matthew has to answer the phone and whisper, “We’re eating dinner; can I call you back?” I be no one else has such a clingy mate.

And all this makes me wonder if I’ve become co-dependent. If I need him so badly, is this love and feeling absence, or is this medically an issue I need to deal with and learn to allow separation?

I think of my mantra, “Clementia,” which is the feminine form of the Latin noun meaning compassion. I am supposed to use clementia to learn compassion for others, and thereby learn compassion for myself. Somehow I feel this is a “clementia” moment. I need to feel the compassion for Matthew to let him be academically professional, but I need to feel compassion that I have a longing for his presence.

Or, is it co-dependent? At least I have new fodder for my therapist instead of the whole “I’m depressed, and I broke my leg” skipping record.

Clementia. Even if it is co-dependence, I need to feel compassion that I have something to deal with.