Perspective On Then and Now: How my "normal" has changed over time.
I have two kids. Two boys 21 months apart in age, and when they were babies and toddlers my husband travelled for work, making my life busy! If you were to add together the days he was away it totalled about 3 months a year. Sometimes it was a day or two at a time, sometimes as much as 2 weeks. His travelling was our life, not an occasional thing, so as the one at home I needed to find ways to cope on my own. With no family in town to help out, (although both my parents and in-laws were great about coming to help if asked) it really was on me to manage day to day. It's amazing how fast this became our new normal.
When your spouse travels, you get a schedule going and you stuck to it. In fact when my dear husband was home everything was much more chaotic because he would mess up "the schedule".
I remember a time when he had a 16 hour stopover at home between getting off one flight and getting onto another. In this chaos that was our lives, I insisted that we always dropped him to and picked him up from the airport. It was very important to me that we say goodbye. He travelled before and after 911, in and out of the same airports the hijacked planes departed from. The truth is, it was important to me regardless of the mode of transportation he was using. I insisted he wake me up to say goodbye when he was driving to various destinations as well.
Things happen, it's part of life and I wanted to say (and hear) I Love You and have him kiss his kids before he left.
When my youngest was three he was asked "what does your Dad do?" his response was "he is a pilot" and given the number of trips we made to the airport I can understand the confusion. It got to the point that my husband would simply emailed me his itinerary so I know which city he was in and until when.
FAST FORWARD A DECADE:
My husband no longer travels for work and hasn't for many years. My kids are now teens, and he is home for dinner every night.
This week my Hubby left on a work trip to Japan. He is not gone for a month. His is only gone for a week. My kids are teens and can dress themselves, and (on most days) much more independent than when they were toddlers. So what's the big deal? I don't know, but it does seem like a big deal, and it's stressing me out. I don't like it when my Hubby is away. When he informed me he needed to stay an additional week, I was not pleased (apparently I don't transition well). I know if he travelled all the time that would be my normal and I wouldn't feel so out of sorts. I mean it's not like we are attached at the hip or spend every moment together, nor do I actually need him here every minute (other than to help the kids with Math, and Science homework - Not my realm. I do English, History and glue stick). And, the technology now makes communication SO much easier with texting, Skype.
So what I realised is; He is my anchor day to day.
After 21 years of marriage he is my normal. And yes I if it was necessary I could get used to him travelling again, but I like my normal the way it is, and lets face it, it's all about me! (Just joking - not really)
Yep, just Cathy Thinking Out Loud about then and now.
