“I’ve got a lot of papers to grade,” I told him. “I’m going to go find a coffee shop where I can sit and get some quiet. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

“Don’t go! We’ve got all these movies to watch…”

“Why don’t you watch one without me? I’ll be back soon. I’ve got to get this done before the class tomorrow.”

“I’ll grade them with you! Just give me the answer key, and I’ll grade them for you! Stay here!”

It was very sweet of him to offer to help me with my work, but it made me realize something. He has no idea what I’m doing when I’m at work. I teach writing, so when I say I have to grade papers, I have to read them, to write comments on them, to engage with what my students are saying in a real way. There’s no answer key…

I’ve had these moments before when I realize how very little he knows about what goes on in my life outside of our home. It kind of shocks me that someone I know so well, who seems to know me very well (at least well enough to be able to manipulate me well), can know so little about what goes on in my day-to-day life…especially such basic things, like what I do for a living.

It was also strange because my teaching practice is something I value and something I talk about a lot with people who are close to me. It is kind of shocking to realize that he never reads my writing, that he doesn’t understand anything about what makes me special in my work…that he thinks when I say, “I’ve got to go grade papers,” and I disappear for 5 hours on the weekend that I’m really just taking that much time with an answer key…

And I guess, really, that’s just it: he doesn’t think. He thinks about me, but not in a way that folks think about each other. I know where he is most of the time, and I know generally what he’s up to. He’ll give me detailed reports on how the projects that he’s working on in his landscaping are shaping up, and I listen and remember. I go and look at his work, and I reflect on how much has changed and how interesting it is. He doesn’t respond to me in the same way. He doesn’t listen to what I say about my work, about my writing, or about my life outside of where it intersects with him. He likes it that I’m smart and that I have a profession, but only in the sense that it’s something to make him feel good about himself: he captured a woman with a lot of degrees, like a pet with a fancy pedigree. It doesn’t mean anything to him what I’ve actually done with my life, what I actually plan to do, unless it something that fulfills his baser needs.

It was an odd day…