Back to Normal

Well as normal as things can be around here. Tim is finally home. He was gone for 31 days this last time. Just up north, still in country, so safe.

When we still lived up north and he was flying regular missions, I never actually depended on a time that he would be home. I lived by, "I'll believe he's home when I can see the whites of his eyes." So many times I got my hopes up that he would be home at a certain hour, only to be disappointed when it came and went with no sign of him. It was never his fault, but rather the fault of an often tempermental airplane, that sometimes just didn't cooperate. The thing would leak and groan and just be a overall POS. There were many times when I would be sitting at home thinking it was about time that he came home, and then he called to tell me he was still in Spain... or Germany... or, well other places. So basically he'd be sitting on an airplane for hours on end, just waiting to see if it could be 'fixed' in time to take off. Then when he found out they couldn't fly it, it was usually close to the time I was expecting him. So after the first couple missions, I figured out that Tim just ain't gonna be home until I see the whites of his eyes.

Now, he hasn't flow like that in almost a year. But I still have that 'whites of the eyes' mentality. Even if he is flying on a commercial airline, it's hard for me to believe he's going to be home at a predetermined hour and be excited about it. It's just not 'normal' for us.

When Tim is away, I'm forced to be it all. I have to take care of things on my own. He can't just drop everything at the drop of a hat and rush home to save me. I've had to learn to adapt to this lifestyle and I 'get it' now. Pipes burst, trees fall, kids get hurt... shit happens. On a fairly regular basis.

When he's home, we make the most of it. When he's gone, we miss him like crazy, but life does go on. C still has to go to school. I still have to go to the store, make dinner, bathe kids, etc. Life still goes on when he's not home. We can't just stop everything and wait. Hell, if we did we'd wait forever.

What matters now is he's home for awhile. At least a couple weeks. It's not long enough, but we will make do. I'll take what I can get. We will have our 'normal' with him home. When he goes, we'll have our 'normal' without him. It won't last forever. It can't last forever. Some day, he'll walk in that door, and he'll be home to stay. Some day, I won't have to let go, so that he can go do what he does elsewhere. Some day, he'll only leave for the day and then be back home again. I miss him. I miss the little things like being able to sit down to dinner next to him. Just having him here. Just knowing he's going to walk in the door at the end of the day. It's crazy how much those little things mean, and how much I took them for granted. Until I realized those were the things I loved. Those were the things that meant the most. I need for him to walk through the door each night and sit down to dinner with us. I need for him to be there at night, just so I can reach out and touch him. And I need him to give me that kiss goodbye each morning, the one where I'm not even hardly awake, but I'm aware that he has taken the time to kiss me. To tell me he loves me. To tell me goodbye, but only to come home that night to kiss me. To tell me he loves me. And to tell me hi.

It's the little things I miss the most when he's gone. I continue to exist when he's not here, but a huge part of my very being is missing. He leaves this huge gap in my life that nothing can quite bridge. It's lonely without him. A kind of lonely that the best of friends can distract me from, but can never quite fill. The days are a little longer, a little more solemn and serious. The nights stretch on forever. We count down the days until he's home. We exist, just in a different way.