I am getting seriously spoiled. A friend of mine who is a stay-at-home-mom (and her family) are staying with me temporarily while they house-hunt. Her husband is busy working and is basically never around.

Tonight, as I am on my way home after a long day at work, wondering how in the world I will have the energy to put dinner together for Sami and me, I get a text asking me if rice, chicken, and veggies in spinach sauce would work for me for dinner. 

Uh, yeah.

So I came home to a home-cooked meal.  I know this sounds kind of sexist, but it totally felt like I had a wife.  I came home in my three-piece suit (I’m serious, I wore a three-piece suit to work today!  But I complemented it with high-heeled ankle boots.) and we sat down to eat.  The meal was delicious.  We had a fascinating conversation over dinner about politics and our radical pasts and all kinds of things. It was just awesome.  At the same time I was helpful and pulled my weight by doing the dishes and emptying the dishwasher.  (I would make a really good husband.)

Tonight makes me realize that I miss being married.  Or maybe I miss community.  I haven’t had the experience of coming home to someone in years.  Why does it make me cry when I type that?  I guess this has all hit a nerve that I didn’t quite expect. 

After dinner Sami was so happy playing with her kids.  It felt so different from our typical quiet nights after work, which have their own beauty but can be lonely.  I only have one single mom friend here and while we have fun getting together, we don’t hang out every night.  Most of my other friends are either married or hanging with their families after work or single without kids and out at happy hours or events or doing something that people without kids do.

I am so used to doing everything by myself.  Most of the time I am cool with it, but this evening I was just so happy to have my “wife” around.  I found myself not wanting our little arrangement to end.  But they found a house to rent, and it is just a short matter of time before they move into it. 

At dinner I teased her that I am going to tell her husband that he better watch out or I am going to steal her away.  I’m not completely joking!  I hope he appreciates her and all that she does.

After they leave, I will again be on the housemate hunt.  The last housemate was such a complete disaster (beyond the scope of this blog post).  Here’s to manifesting a different arrangement this time around, one that brings our family this kind of warm and lovely sense of community and connection.  And in the longer term, here’s to manifesting a partner to come home to.