Writing is a solitary life. I think most people think of me as an extroverted social butterfly, but I’m not. I tell myself (and it’s true) that every adventure “out” into the world is research. I’m always doing research. And people in town usually see me with Danielle, which might give one the impression that a lot of our alone time is spent together just hanging out being “best friends.” Sometimes, but not so much. And I’m not writing as much now as I used to.

Usually, when I’m either reading, writing, preparing to write, or doing research (which is a lot of the time,) Danielle knows to disappear. Today, when I sat down to write, she hooked up Merle on his leash and left for a walk. She’ll say, “Message me when you’re done.” That’s a snapshot of a whole life lived, and we’ve been married going on 31 years.

When writing is pursued seriously, it is never just writing. It is reading, research, and thinking – all solitary pursuits. These things really define my life. I’ve always said I do 8 hours of reading/research for every hour of writing. Not so much anymore, but for most of my life this may even be an understatement. And being “alone” is often misunderstood. Even if someone else is around, there are things you really do alone. Being born and dying, for example. Unless you are twins or triplets, but even then, you’re pretty much alone with the experience.

I digress.

The point is that while the in-between parts – between being born and dying – are often lived with others, for the writer, those times are still often spent alone. And this makes it harder on the spouse, no doubt. I’ve spent most of all of my days alone, thinking, reading, researching, studying, thinking some more, and sometimes writing. When I’m with her, I’m often still in my head, reading, thinking about things. Sometimes, she gets spurts of it. Verbal effusions of half-worked-out ideas that I need to sound out. Sometimes she gets the “Cliff Notes” of my thoughts but when she wants more, I tell her she needs to go read whatever I wrote and published. It must be frustrating.

My “love language” is “Have you read what I wrote?” “What did you think about it?” It’s not that I need validation so much as me saying “If you haven’t read what I wrote, then you really don’t know me that well.”

She not only has to spend most of her days without me physically there, but when I am there, I’m not very there. She knows the glazed-over look, the grunts, the single word responses. She has a saying when she knows I’m not really listening. She’ll be mid-sentence and then go into… “Oh, and I’m going to Iraq” which is her way of saying “I know you aren’t listening.” Early in our marriage I figured this out, and those words “I’m going to Iraq” became a cue for me to pretend to be listening. “No! I’m listening.. you said,” *then I play back the last few words of what she said that I’m clueless about and are about to disappear from my short-term memory* But she knows. She knows. She finds out later what I was thinking about when she reads it with everyone else.

Here’s the thing, I’m alone most of the time and that’s the way I am designed. It’s not a bad thing for me. Not so much now, as it was before. For the nearly 18 years we lived off-grid, I had an office down by the creek with 3,000 books and I spent most of my life there. It’s hard to explain, but even though I spent most of my time alone, I was still lonely when she was not there. And today, when she leaves so I can do my work, I’m lonely too.

When I don’t see her for a while, I’ll get anxious, wanting her to come back, but it is usually sufficient for me to know I will see her soon. And I know she’s not particularly designed that way. She has adapted. Smart phones have probably eased the transition, but not always in a good and healthy way. Remember, she had 20+ without a device to do puzzles on when she got bored. And for most of those years, to find out what I really think, she was handed a stack of papers, sometimes dozens or hundreds of pages. Now, she can usually read it online.

It is a sacrifice for her to be married to this loner who spends most of his life in books, in thought, or writing. And I know it isn’t always easy for her. I’ve made an effort these last few years to be more “present” when I’m present. Living in this small apartment, it’s easier for me to spend more time with her and not spend 8 hours a day in books. She takes what she can get, and that makes me admire her more.

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Michael Bunker is a local columnist for BrownwoodNews.com whose columns appear periodically on the website.