No Sir, I Don't Like This

I've come to the conclusion that I do not like G being away from home~ at all.
I've realized that despite all attempts over the years to shake away all forms of co-dependency, traces remain.

Well what the hell IS marriage but co-dependency?

I'm so used to ME being the one who is away from home. It is me who leaves the house to attend a birth that could take 4 hours or 48 hours. It is me who is distracted outside of the home, looking forward to joining my family again, but for the most part, not really thinking much about it.

G went to England for 5 measly days. It wasn't so much the length of time that struck me, but the distance. A whole ocean away unsettled me.

Tonight he is sleeping in the woods somewhere 3 hours north with our fishing/kayaking/camping neighbor. The planned the trip a few weeks back before G's grandmother died. I encouraged him to go on this trip anyway, because he never goes on trips like these and I knew he'd love it. He's quite the bivouac type of guy.
He'll be home Wednesday afternoon.

It's nearly midnight. I've read around 130 pages tonight from the book, Into the Forest.
Holy shit, that book is disturbing, beautiful and addictive. Plot: the modern world crashes. No electricity, gas, cars, airplanes, government or economy. Two sisters who were raised on the outskirts of a small town, in a house that butts up against state-protected forest are left to forge for themselves while the world crumbles around them (without them knowing much since they can't get into the world via car or internet). They have to learn to grow their own food, store it for winter, one sister gets raped and ultimately becomes pregnant... too much. But still very good.
However, as I sit in my big cold, old house with just the children in bed and my mother upstairs, and as I hear the occasional rowdy college kid from the street, it's very easy to imagine the fear of being in that house with those sisters. Meanwhile, my husband is in the forest and I want him home.
I don't mean to be dramatic, but I don't like being alone.
When I was a kid and my parents divorced, my stay at home mom had to work for the first time in almost 20 years. That meant shitty wages and shitty shifts. Usually an afternoon shift. As we got a little older, my blossoming teenage sister and brother would leave the house, leaving my scared 10 year old butt at home, obeying my 9pm bedtime despite no one being around to enforce it. I'd lay in bed and listen to all the sounds from the street. Depending on where we were living, the sounds would range from quiet sub to very noisy low-income housing.
I'm realizing now that I've not quite overcome that dread of being alone.
And I feel pretty pathetic as a 34 year old woman not being able to fall asleep at 11:30 on a Sunday night.

In other news, my dear friend V called me yesterday. Her father had to undergo emergency surgery at the U from which he's having a hard time recovering. They told her he has a 30% chance of living. He's on life support right now. She's an only child, her parents are divorced, and he's only 59 or 60 or so.
Mr. O., her dad, was always very kind to me. V and I hung out all through high school, attached at the hip. In so many ways, he is like a blood relative to me. He paid for my plane ticket to Europe when we were 19 because he knew my broke family could never send me. He bought us so many meals at the Fleetwood when we were teenagers, while he chain smoked Virginia Slims and gave us the low-down, half-assed gossip of fooufy A2 grownups. Many, many good memories with V and her dad.
Praying that he makes a miraculous recovery. Waiting all day and night for my phone to ring, to give me some news update of his health. On-call in a very different way.
With this happening and reading Into the Forest, I'm all sorts of triggered about a father figure possibly passing. And my husband gone for a few days.
Oy vey, I'm an over-thinking emotional hoo-haa.

In other news, I attended the expo today where I gave my much anticipated presentation to a huge audience of (ready for this?) ahem, 3. Uh huh, three.
Cozy and casual and I didn't feel overwhelmed at least. :)
And I must say, that while I appreciate many modalities of alternative health and living, it was hard to keep my working-class cynicism down today. I saw massages performed where hands never actually touched the body on the table. I saw animal clairvoyants, and folks who sold very overpriced bags of easy-to-grow herbs like mint and lavender. I saw holistic dog food that cost more than 3 days of meals for my family. I also talked to a lot of very nice, passionate people.

I really should try to go to bed. I'm not meant to read disturbing things. I take them on into my life as reality, I swear. Hard to shake so many things.