Dividing Your Time

    

      Have you ever noticed when you read about authors on book jacket covers, for example, you often find they divide their time between some beautiful hot place and some normal everyday place? Like, she divides her time between Bermuda and the Boston suburbs. Or, he divides his time between Malaga and Manchester. Like that. 

       I've always wanted that. I've always dreamed of getting to the point in my life where I could divide my time between Italy (the dream) and fill-in-the-blank (the unknown).

      It sounds fabulous, doesn't it? But is it that easy to achieve? 

      I've got a girlfriend who is presently dividing her time between London and Paris, mostly Paris (unfortunately for me). She and her husband own a place in London, which they've kept, but they've moved to Paris to a rented flat for a few years for his work. And they go back and forth. Besides the fact she gets frantic trying to keep up two households, and sometimes can't remember where anything is, it seems to be working pretty well for her.

      They go back and forth together pretty much all the time. And they've kept their primary home intact. 

      Maybe therein lies the difference: They've kept their primary home, where their daughter mostly grew up, comes home to, and where they've lived for years, intact. And they go back and forth together.

      Last night, after a couple glasses of wine and an ensuing shot of confidence, I said to my husband, I can make this divide-your-time thing work. Why not? What am I stressing about?

      Then, this morning at dawn (what is it about dawn and middle-aged women?), I looked over at him sleeping and thought, wait a minute, he's got to leave at the end of next week and go back to work. 

       And unlike my friend, I'm not going with him. And we're not sure when he can come back.

       So, in our case, it's kind of a single divide-your-time thing at the moment, him in London, me here.

       Can that work? 

       I thought I had almost lost my husband to a serious illness six years ago. And now, I've given up almost everything in my life except him. 

       Does solo dividing your time just lead to estrangement? Will it mean that he'll plow ahead with creating a new London life while I nest here? 

      That wasn't the goal, was it?