The old man is in Fucking Fairbanks right now. Clearly he's not having the time of his life.
So, Beth, big deal. At least he's 3000 miles away and miserable, and not right in your face. You'd think that wouldn't you? But no, it doesn't exactly work that way.
It's hard enough keeping a marriage/relationship/family together when one of you is gone approximately half the time. Resentments abound, on both sides of the equation.
One of us hates being alone in a hotel room all by themsleves, disconnected from the family. One of us feels like they're the only one around to take care of things. There's a lot of missing by all of us, in various degrees, at different times, and they don't always mesh. Someone wanting some alone time. Another of us having too much alone time and wanting more family time. Resentments about not getting to do school things. Resentments about the other one not being able to do school things.
And it's the other things.
It's hearing (or thinking you hear) a tone of voice that is completely misconstrued but leads to a day of bad feelings on one or both sides. It's the one being pissed off at something that has nothing to do with the other one, but the other one thinking it does, because maybe that other one takes everything a bit too personally. It's one being too busy to talk because they're at work, when the other one wants to/needs to talk. It's about being lonely and wanting to tell the other one but not wanting to make them feel bad.
It's about loving someone so much that it sometimes just hurts when they're not there with you. When all you need is a hug or a smile or a friendly face and you can't have that because they're 3000 fucking miles away. Or 1500 miles away, or 1000 miles away, but it doesn't matter how far away they are, because they're just not there, and not going to be there with you for 10 days, seven days, five days, three days, even one day, but you want them to be there NOW.
So, I know my husband is having a bad time of it. And there's nothing I want more than to be there, right by his side.
Posted by beth at June 2, 2004 02:41 PMI can relate. At least mine is for one very long year and then it's over, it'd be hard if it was a job she had and was gone for long periods of time for the next ten years or so. I've told her I'll shoot her myself before letting her go off anywhere again :-)
Posted by: Beth at June 3, 2004 07:48 PM