Word Vomit

As you may recall, I am an extreme extrovert, which is why it's so hard on me when JD is working night shifts.  On nights he’s working, he’s only awake for about an hour before he has to leave for work.  Even on his off days, he’ll sleep till late afternoon, so our time together is very limited.  It’s not that I’m completely isolated when he’s not around- I do have my own friends and my own life- but he is my best friend and the person I tell everything to, so I’m still getting used to not having him around as much as I’d like.  By the end of night shift months, I'm so relieved to have him back around full-time that I start spewing thoughts one after another as if I've been keeping a mental checklist of everything I've missed out on telling him over the past month.  Being the good husband he is, he patiently listens (or at least gives the illusion of paying attention, which I appreciate), and even though I know he’s probably getting sick of listening to me talk for the sake of talking, I can’t help myself.  It keeps coming out, like a compulsion.

A few weeks ago, JD had spent the weekend working night shifts, so by Sunday, I was starved for spousal interaction.  I waited till 4 then went upstairs to wake him up so we could go to an early dinner (well, dinner for me, breakfast for him).  He’d barely rolled out of bed before I started rambling about the wall hanging I’d bought at Target to put up in our bedroom and where we could go to eat.  I could hear him silently begging me to stop talking till he was a little more awake, and I couldn’t blame him.  I wouldn’t want someone to start rambling right when I’d woken up either, yet I kept talking, as if I felt the need to make up for lost time.

I know that my family is reading this now and smiling to themselves, because they’ve definitely been there.  Back in high school, I’d spend dinnertime detailing each class I had that day until everyone else was in the kitchen cleaning up and I had a cold plate of untouched food in front of me.  My mom once told me that the first family meal after I’d left for college was practically silent.  No one knew what to say because they were so used to me jeopardizing the conversation.  Even now, I get so excited when I haven’t seen my family in a while that I can’t stop talking.  It’s hard for me to break away long enough to take a shower so we can leave to go somewhere. 

I think Lindsay Lohan said it best in Mean Girls (yes, I’m actually quoting a Lindsay Lohan movie here, but Mean Girls is classic) when she said, “I could hear people getting bored with me, but I couldn't stop. It just kept coming up like word vomit.”

I’m just glad I have a good husband and family who love me, despite the word vomit.