iKen, myKen
as of yesterday, january 1st, ken is officially retired. good news/bad news. i am both elated and fearful. and let me explain why.
i am writer, which means i’m mostly home, as in i work at home. if you can really truthfully call it work. i get to wear pajamas all day long, and some days, not all days, i kinda feel like the unawriter. living in the woods, only going out when i need to, mostly going to the post office wearing a hooded sweatshirt and yoga pants… i’m pretty sure this is how the unabomber lived. anyway, as always i digress…
ken is now retired which means on a cellular level he will be home with me. i adore him, i do. and i like him. a lot. but i don’t really like being around anyone 24/7. maybe when i was younger and desperate, and attached myself to a guy with velcro… but that was then. i didn’t know better. i didn’t know that someone could stay in love even when they were apart. i didn’t know that i didn’t need to be in someone’s eye-view in order for them to remember me, i didn’t know that i was this wildly wonderfully independent woman. i was taught to keep myself small – neither noble or productive. i rebelled, thankfully.
so, now… ken, my ken, is retired. he’s worked long and hard in the film business. sometimes he worked long and hard for 17/18/19 hours a day. those days and nights i hated. truly deeply hated. i worried. waiting waiting waiting for him to come home. on those nights when he worked obscene hours, i often thought about cop wives who wait for their husbands to come home after some kind of drug sting (which, by the way, back then, was not that different to working on a feature film… drug wise.) they would wait for their husbands to come home safely.
and when ken came home, walked through the door… i would breathe. all was okay. and then, he would go to work the next day. and i would be alone to write.
and then i would wait, then he would come home, he would go back to work, and i would make believe that i was writing, and on and on and on… and this went on for 17 years.
and so…
in a two week period, we gave up our NYC apartment, and ken retired.
i’m kinda sure, although not 100% sure, that i may go a bit crazy nuts, which brings me full circle.
i am a writer. i’m going to write about this. it’s what i do. i write about my life: the good, the bad, the unattractive, the cluttered, the sad, the joy…i will be googling retirement probably on a daily basis, and i will be checking my horoscopes and iChing to see how i will be getting through each day and even sneak a peek at the next day. i’m sure there will be days i stay in bed, days i want to scream, days i love him more than i ever imagined, and days that i just want the fuck out.
it’s a new adventure.
and it includes sex.
how bad can that be?
and i have a car.
see that.
