New Year

I’m about to board my Hawaiian Airlines flight back to Seattle and sit here by the gate with the same lump in my throat that I get every time I have to leave Ty.  You’d think after three and a half years it’d get easier going.  You’d think that knowing I’ll see him in three weeks would make the lump not so big, or the ache in my gut not so heavy, but it doesn’t.

I tell myself lots of people have lives like this.  I tell myself lots of people travel for their work and partings and goodbyes are only temporarily but still…still…

On the positive side, it’s easy to be aware of my many blessings.  I have an amazing guy that loves me.  We’re so happy together we’re talking about family and babies.  We’re both doing what we want to do in life and our careers are doing well.  We have homes and friends and good health.  Essentially, we have everything one could hope for. 

I guess then that I can’t be sad going home.  I go back to my boys and my one-eyed bulldog Abi.  I go back to a new book as I’m starting to want to do the pre-writing I do before I actually pound out a novel.  Tiana’s story has been simmering for a long time in my head and now it’s time to get scenes down on paper.  To write the dialogue.  To find out who she really is and what this story is really about.

Everything is good.  Everything’s great. 

I just wish my guy wasn’t staying behind.