We joke about people being married to their jobs, but the numbers in my own life tell quite a tale. A typical workday sees me awake for 17 hours. I spend nine of those with co-workers. Since Jeff and I keep slightly different work schedules, I only see him for about five hours per weekday.

The jokes become less comfortable when you realize that you're spending more hours per day with your co-workers than you do with the person you married. Co-workers don't have the same commitment to permanence that spouses do; they are people you spend time with, but not people you share everything with. I marvel at how few people find this strange or unusual.

I fear the days you stand outside my door,
too timid to ring, too determined to leave. Your
presence comes and goes, waning and waxing with the moon's
movements, from new to crescent to full. A tune

composed of someone else's notes, you are
as familiar as my dreams and fears and as far
removed from my life as I could have made you.
Was I wrong to sacrifice you to the hesitant altar

of selfishness, ambition, greed? It is easier to think
of planned vacations and toys than to sink
emotions, time, love—myself—into the bringing of life,