Here I Go Again

Well, here I am back on a plane again. There’s no cute baby to entertain me this time, which is probably good because I have a crap load of work to get done.

During this three hour flight I need to somehow transform myself into a working machine. Ahead of me lays the biggest accomplishment of my career to date. Or the worst failure. It could go either way, really, but I’m shooting for biggest accomplishment.

For the next eleven days I will live and breath work. It will be exhausting and I will probably get a headache or two, or maybe just one really long one. No matter how the trip goes, I’ll come home relieved to have this latest stint over with.

I miss my husband whenever I travel, something I didn’t have to worry about years ago when I first started traveling for work. (Back then I missed and worried about Bunny instead!) Even though everyday at home can be just as busy as these next couple of weeks, there’s always the comfort of crawling into my own bed at the end of the day, next to him.

Focus. I need to focus.

The first time I went on the road since meeting J, was when we’d only been dating a few weeks. I was going to Denver for nine days.

“I’d really like to see you before you go,” J emailed me, which had pleased me a lot considering our relationship was so new.

BUT I had packing to do and a ten year old who needed my attention before I left, so a babysitter and a date were out of the question.

I emailed him back just that and then decided to take a chance.

“If you want,” I ventured, “you could come over later tonight, once my packing is done and Bunny is asleep…and stay.”

I pressed send before I could change my mind and chicken out. He seemed kind of surprised by the offer, it would be the first time he would stay at my house, but took me up on it nonetheless.

He kept emailing while I was on the road, although I could only respond infrequently. When I told him we were working an eighteen hour straight shift he said, “What kind of sweatshop are you working for?”

I think he might still feel the same way about my job, but he’s gotten pretty good at keeping it to himself, (because he knows how important it is to me) except the part where he misses me, we’re both really open about that.

Little did I know, that the first night I invited him to stay, before I left for that first trip, would start a pattern that would go on for three more years until we moved in together.

Fifty percent of the time J had his kids and stayed at home, but the other fifty percent we spent together at my house. I would do all the mom things after work, dinner and soccer and concerts and shopping, and then once Bunny was in bed, shower and get all ready for a stay in date. Dating in the age of single-parenthood! We didn’t get a lot of sleep, and we used to joke that we were “living on love”.

“I notice,” J’s ex, who drove by my house on each of her custody days on her way to drop the kids at school said to J, “that you never stay at home except when you have the kids.”

It was true, and it was also none of her business. I joked about putting a sign in my yard that said, “Honk if your ex sleeps here!” but of course I would never, mostly because I am a decent human being, but also because no matter how snarky we felt, we ALWAYS put the kids best interests first. (Don’t even get me started)

So, I will miss my husband something fierce, but with any luck, I’ll be so exhausted at the end of each day that I’ll collapse into bed, and be asleep before I can spend too much time pining away. (SIGH)

Focus. Have I mentioned I need to focus? F-O-C-U-S! (A working machine, I tell you!)

Hope you’re having a great week so far,

Nic