Steve has been away since the beginning of November. Not completely. He does a week, comes back for a few days, another week, and so on. But now it’s been a two week trip and he won’t be home until Tuesday – that means two weekends, which always makes it feel longer. Steve has always traveled with his job and it’s usually fine, but it’s been more intense lately and I’m turning into an unhappy bitch.
The main reason? Well if you combine his intense travel schedule with me starting a new job – where you’ve got to show up, be on the ball, hopefully impressing your new colleagues along the way – AND attend Christmas/end-of-year festivities for grown-ups and the kids – well Steve not being here isn’t a lot of fun, for him either.
Vick is here (HALLELUJAH!), but only for a wee while longer, and Jona as well – both amazing women, who love our boys, and couldn’t do enough for them. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: we couldn’t do what we do without their help. However, since the boys were born, Steve and I have both thought it’s important they know they’re the center of our world, and that means getting home in time to have dinner with them, being there in the morning to hug them off to school, and being available when their little hearts are broken, and they just need extra love and attention. That’s hard to do without Steve around.
It’s been crazy-busy for both of us these last couple of months, and it’s absolutely killing me. If Steve is home, it’s OK, the guilt isn’t so bad, but when he’s not and I’m not home, well I do my head in – I can’t help it. I’ve been like that ever since becoming a mother. All of it just makes me so bloody tired though, because guilt is exhausting.
As we’re now getting towards the end of Steve’s longest trip, I’m definitely starting to get pretty cranky with it all – towards Steve and with the boys. I’m getting curt on the phone now, because our opportunity to speak is always so limited based on time zone differences, and what’s convenient for him is not always convenient for me, and vice versa.
But it’s more than that. I starts to get boring. I don’t want to speak to him on the phone. I want to speak to him in person. I’m bored with the same SMS’s I send every day – have a great sleep, I miss you, I love you, have an amazing day…. It’s becomes same-old same-old within a week, so by two weeks, I’m out of ideas. And I’m sick of us all missing each other. Enough already.
Seriously, I know that people who don’t get to do a lot of travel (especially with their work) often think it all sounds rather glamorous, but the reality is very far from that. It’s not glamorous for the traveler, and it’s certainly not a lot of fun for those staying at home the other end of the phone line.
It’s hard and lonely and exhausting and more, but in the weeks before Christmas, it’s also heart-breaking, because Steve has missed A LOT of important things and that makes it all even harder. He hasn’t coped too well with that either.
It is what it is, and this lifestyle is OUR choice, but my darling, please hurry hurry and come home. We’re all just really missing you, but me most of all. I’m just not that great without you.
Yours, without the bollocks
Andrea
