Adam Oster, Novelist

As I type this, I’m looking at only having approximately 36 hours until I’m allowed back into my home. And I honestly don’t know if I can make it. After talking with my wife this morning, I’m realizing more and more how terrible of a choice it was for me to choose performing in a show over being there for her, and it’s seriously taking all of my willpower to not just pack up my bag and move back in.

But only 36 hours left of this separation that nobody wanted. Of this unintentional experiment in whether or not we can live without each other (The answer is apparently that we can’t). Of sitting on the sidelines while my wife battles her own illness and our three kids who aren’t ill and she’s trying to quarantine herself from.

Of simply wanting to be home.

The past 36 hours have been a whirlwind of near nothingness. Outside of attending a funeral yesterday, I didn’t leave my hotel room until 6pm, when I went to rehearsal and tried to help get our new cast mates up to speed. Which, by the way, although I’d love to be finishing this show with all of the original cast (my wife definitely included), they were amazing. Completely off book and ready to get down to business. I can’t say as much for those of us who have already performed two shows. Luckily the newbies were patient with the shenanigans of the old guard and we got through our rehearsal with the newbies showing a confidence with the script I couldn’t have imagined possible after only a day (at most) with it in their hands.

But sitting here in this hotel, sending little messages to my wife to try to keep up to date on how she’s feeling, I just feel so…helpless. It’s not like there’s all that much I could do if I were at home, outside of try to keep the kids at bay, but I still feel like I should be there, doing whatever I can to make her life easier while she struggles through.

I don’t like feeling helpless. I like feeling like I can, at the very least, just be present, even if I’m not able to do anything. And in this case, I’m not. And I’m really not sure that I’m okay with it.

But 36 hours…then I’ll rush home, hold on to my wife, and won’t let go until she tells me I can’t follow her into the bathroom.

36 hours…