Silent Night

My wife and I shared a cab home last night after she finished up an evening of “team building” with her co-workers (at a cooking class!) and I caught up on some assigning and editing. Both of our children, 15 and almost-12, had left that morning to go skiing for a few days in the company of another family (with my wife heading out to join them tonight). Yes, you read that right! We got home last night to a childless apartment that was clean and quiet and free of family melodrama. It was so disorienting. Though in the morning my wife and I agreed on another word for it.

The word—dare I say it—was “pleasant.”

Pleasant as in the lights weren’t on in every room.

Pleasant as in there weren’t jackets and hats and sneakers strewn about the living room.

Pleasant as in there was no flip-flopping of friendliness and frustration, of hugs and haranguing.

We’ve been here before, when the kids were at sleepaway camp at the same time. But that was an expected part of the transcript. These plans came together in the last few days, and only with the agreement of a very generous friend.

Last night we joked about how much it seemed like how things used to be before we were married and had children. But I think we were also both aware that the real joke was on us: On how much it was like how our lives will be in the future.

Last night was the quiet of the childless.

Tonight, with my wife gone, is the quiet of aloneness.