For six weeks we were a family. A real family. My wonderful man, my Peter, my Beepooh (don’t ask), was here and made our family complete. And now he’s gone again for another wait.
I know you hear cheesy people talk about the one who “completes them” and roll your eyes. Yeah, I’m not one of those, I promise. But there has been a gaping hole in our family for far too long. There has been a gaping hole in my life for as long as I can remember, and he fits perfectly into that space.
He is wonderful with my children. He teaches them things I don’t even know. He makes me stop to appreciate their points of view when I lose my temper and want to lose control on them. He gives us structure, he makes me think about the bigger picture. He makes me a better mother by showing me what he sees as someone coming in from the outside. He fits so naturally into our lives. It’s not a struggle, it’s not a fight, it’s just right.
Sometimes, when you’re starting out in a relationship the person seems like a stranger when you first spend time together. And though we’ve been together for more than a year, we live 5000 miles apart, and haven’t spent that much time together in person. Still, I’ve never once felt like I didn’t know him completely. He is like the best friend I’ve known all my life. When we’re together, we flow. We know what each other is thinking. We can talk for hours about the most moronic of topics and still just laugh and laugh, each of us bouncing ideas off of the other until we’re so tired we can’t keep our eyes open.
I had to say goodbye to my love tonight. I took him to the airport and dropped him off, and cried my eyes out all over again. It doesn’t get easier with time. It gets harder. Each time I have to say goodbye I’ve had just a little more time to know that this is the man I want to be with. This is the man I want to spend the rest of my life with. This is the man I want to help me raise my children. And each time I let him go, he takes just a little more of my heart with him. I know I’ll have him back in 8 months if all goes according to plan. (I wish weddings and visas weren’t so expensive.) I know that in time this will seem like nothing of a wait. But right now, it’s tearing me apart.
Peter, please come home soon. You’re loved and needed here.
Driving an hour to work and back everyday, plus tolls and fuel, didn’t sit well with me. The fact that I lived in the ghetto where they shoot people across the street was even more of a nightmare. A week of solid packing, 2 professional movers and half a bottle of Aleve later, we’re now living in a two bedroom apartment on the North side of OKC, ten minutes from my new office!
Peter has so lovingly agreed to stay an additional two weeks to help with the transition. Mostly, I just didn’t want to let him go, but I also wanted him to spend our first night in our new home together. This is where he will come back to. This is where we will live as husband and wife when he returns. I didn’t want to go to a new place without him. So we did some adjusting and he’ll be staying here until next Sunday.
So let me tell you about the place: 2 bed/2 bath, with a laundry room and a full-sized washer and dryer. It’s a tiny bit smaller than my last apartment as far as storage space goes, but larger in square footage if you include the laundry room and the fact that the Master bath is a full, not a half. (I heart personal showers!) The closet isn’t a walk-in, which is a disappointment, but it’ll work. It’s much nicer than the old place all-around.
The complex I live in is quite big – 890 units total. There are 6 pools, 2 of which are indoor with attached hot tubs. Free tanning beds, a huge gym, complete with aerobics room, a theater room that seats 21, and lighted tennis courts. It’s a gated community, with 24hr courtesy patrol. It seems pretty nice so far, though they messed up and put me in an upstairs when I was assured I was getting a downstairs unit. Peter is happy with the upstairs, he likes the balcony. Looks like I’m going to have to get used to hiking up and down the stairs, and I’m going to need to invest in a little table for the balcony so he can sit out there and have his morning coffee.
It’s really going to be a home! Not just a house, not just an apartment… but OUR home. Now if we can just start getting rid of some of these boxes.