I hate it when Brian has to leave for work. The Bargain Basement where he works sends him all over the place to open new stores. Luckily, everything so far has been in either Pennsylvania or Virginia. And a day trip to Maryland, I think. He had to go to Kansas City when he worked for Circuit City (see the irony?), but that was like four days. This is North Carolina. For a week and a half. One particularly long trip was to Richmond for somewhere around three and a half weeks. It was horrible, but he could come back here on his days off and I visited him down there once as well. Of course, being Richmond, part of the fun was that the store was in an absolute ghetto and people were often robbed at gunpoint in the parking lot. While he was there. Gotta love Richmond. But now, he's eight hours away, too far to visit, and gone for a long time.
Mama swears I'll eventually want Brian to be away sometimes. She lives for hunting season, when Daddy becomes a mountain man living in his cabin and pretending to hunt deer She loves to eat out for every meal, stay up late, sleep in late, not clean house, and basically be single for a week. They both think it keeps them married, this system having a few weeks a year off for good behavior. I do not think we will ever get to this point, and personally hope we do not. I love Brian more than anything in the whole world, and could happily spend 24 hours a day with him for the rest of our lives. We've actually talked about this quite frequently (he feels the same way), and we're so glad our marriage is so good. He's my best friend and I want to share each little mundane thing with him. Not having him here for at least a chunk of the day makes my life crawl by in a boring, pointless blur. If you don't know me, you may not know that I am an accomplished sleeper. I can sleep anywhere, anytime, in most any position, and through any ruckus. I'm really good at it. When Brian's gone, I do not sleep. If I can get to sleep before 1 AM, it's a good night. And then it's only with the pillows strategically arranged, at least one cat purring by my head, and with the TV on. Then I'll wake up every two hours until 7:30. Tons of fun. It wears on me when he's gone for three or four days, so I can't imagine how I'm going to last 10 days of this routine.
Before the Yaya Princess and I were married, back when we were blushing, virginal maidens (cough, sputter), (you know like three years ago?) , Brian had to go to Kansas City for Circuit City. He had never flown anywhere before, and neither had I (I know, we're sheltered). I took the day off to drive him over to the Charlottesville airport, put him on a horribly small propeller plane, and watched it take off for the middle of nowhere. I will freely admit that I fully expected to see his plane drop from the sky or explode while I stood by the fence crying my head off. You see, I'm part of that lucky generation that has lived through the Challenger and 9/11. So maybe my imagination works overtime, or maybe I have post traumatic stress. Whatever, I was scared. I waited until that plane was completely gone from view, and then I headed back home. I cried for the entire hour I was on the road. I called my Yaya Princess to cheer me up. She travels a lot for work (so not kidding....like living in a different state for a month out of the year at that point), and so does everyone she knows. I called to ask her how on earth you get used to putting someone you love on a plane, trusting that it won't fall out of the sky and that they'll be back safe and sound. Better yet, in light of Brian's need to do this again in a month, how do you get used to doing it over and over?! She assured me that it was totally safe, and that I'd be fine. I think maybe she thought I was a little bit nuts. She loves me anyway, though, and checked in on me through the week.
Fast-forward about a year or year and a half. Yaya Princess and her Prince were engaged, and he had to go out of town for business. Living within spitting distance of three airports like they do, the Princess dropped him by the airport on her way to work. And then called me, sobbing like someone had shot her cat. She suddenly got it -- it's a whole heck of a lot different when you put the person you love more than anything else in the whole world on a plane. Saying goodbye to your boyfriend for a week? Easy. Saying goodbye to the love of your life for 10 minutes? Enough to make you rend your clothing, break out the ashes and sack cloth, and maybe go on a hunger strike to boot. She said it was infinitely harder than ever before, and that she completely understood why I was so upset now. We haven't talked about the subject in a while, but I'm willing to bet it still feels the same way for her. I know it does for me. As I watched that Jetta pull out of our driveway I couldn't help but cry. Forget that my husband is The Safest Driver On The Road. Hands at 10 and 2, foot ever ready for the brake, GPS enabled and guiding him to safety, always 5 miles under the speed limit. I don't care, I sobbed anyway. Maybe I'll stop crying by the time he gets home. Ugh, I hate business trips!!!
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