How I survived a weekend without my fiancée and didn’t devolve into a cupcake-inhaling, Bitcoin-investing machine
Every few months, my fiancée, Alicia, leaves to travel with friends, attend a conference or visit family, leaving me to fend for myself and not burn down the Charlotte-Metro area. This weekend was one of those weekends.
Alicia and I have been together for nearly six years now, have lived together for over three and have called several cities our home. We’re certainly not co-dependent, but spending so much of your life with someone still has an impact on your habits and lifestyle.
Amongst other things, Alicia is a driving force to keep me from devolving into cupcake-inhaling, Bitcoin-investing, trash-making machine. So when she told me she’d be going to Savannah, Ga. for the weekend, everyone I knew expected the worst.
In an effort to keep my friends and family from worrying that I was getting back into World of Warcraft or trying to teach our dog to wear Timberlands, I decided to chronicle my experience.
Let’s begin.
Day One
5 Minutes Alicialess: Pizza rolls for breakfast. I never realized how… interesting the lukewarm interior of pizza roll tastes at 9 a.m.
5 Hours Alicialess: I have decided that my body needs more stomach-cement and consumed $20 worth of Southern food. Time for a nap.
10 Hours Alicialess: Did you know Amazon Prime Now delivers beer? Why walk two blocks to the corner-store when I can spend $35 dollars on beer and granola bars and not leave the couch?
12 Hours Alicialess: Luna (our pup) and I have been listening to hip-hop remixes of Christmas songs for about an hour. I’m a pretty good dancer; she’s an awesome dancer.
Day Two
21 Hours Alicialess: Eight crescent rolls is too many for one person to eat. Also, didn’t realize you had to roll the dough before putting them in the oven. Not sure how or why, but I just imagined they rolled themselves when they baked.
22 Hours Alicialess: You can ALWAYS fit one more thing in the garbage before changing bags.
27 Hours Alicialess: Did you guys know that dishes don’t automatically become clean? This is blowing my mind right now.
30 Hours Alicialess: Oh god, how did it get so messy in here? Did I eat a whole pizza yesterday? Even Luna seems like she’s a hot mess.
34 Hours Alicialess: Wait, wait, wait … Alicia comes home today? Oh god. Windex is more or less an all-surface cleaner, right? Also, need to shower. I think my blood is mostly oil and cheese.
…
Alicia came home about an hour or so later to a clean-ish house, a top-notch bouquet of Harris Teeter flowers and a thoroughly relieved fiancé.
As I frantically sprayed Windex on a every flat surface in the house, I realized I really do make an incredible amount of garbage when left to my own devices. I also realized that I am genuinely better off when Alicia is around.
Alicia came home to Harris Teeter flowers and the bergamot and mandarin scent of her “Happiness” candle wafting through the house.
Sure, it’s fun to shovel calories down my gullet and wrap myself in blankets while I ask Amazon delivery people to come inside my house… but it’s not really a solid life-plan. Alicia kinda keeps my life on track: urging me to make better decisions, encouraging me to be active and laughing at my terrible jokes so I don’t need to spam my social feeds with nonsense.
I think it’s that dynamic that makes us so happy; we balance very well off each other, supporting each other and encouraging one another to be the best version of ourselves.
And while we both love having our ‘alone time,’ we love our together time even more.
This story was originally published February 18, 2018 at 9:00 PM with the headline "How I survived a weekend without my fiancée and didn’t devolve into a cupcake-inhaling, Bitcoin-investing machine."