Best Friends and Working From Home

Photo by Arwen Abendstern.

After placing the last plate in the dishwasher yesterday, I poured in the detergent, set the dial, and burst in to tears. It was not the chemicals or the hormones. Okay, probably a little bit of the hormones. Okay, probably mostly the hormones. But it was also because it’s been almost a full year since I made the freelance switch, and I was ready to admit to the kitchen sink that I am, in fact, lonely.

Look, I don’t get lonely. I clutch jealously at control of my life and my time like the One Ring. Days and days will go by and I’ll happily not leave my office except to go to Mass, at which point I’ll pile my purse and jacket in the pew next to me and daaaaare you with my eyes to sit on the other side. And if you do plop yourself there, you keep your sticky paw to yourself. I will genially wish you peace from my five-foot bubble of personal space, my brother. And also with you.

Nonetheless, yesterday I realized that I cannot remember the last time I have been shopping with another woman, and surfaced in tears because of it.

“But,” said my husband as I wept on him over this, “you don’t like to shop. We couldn’t afford to shop even if you did.”

“I knoooooow.” I covered my face with my arm.

“Aren’t I your friend?”

“You don’t understand about shoes.” Continue Reading