Time

Time … it’s a funny thing.

It has been exactly 18 hours since I walked into my empty house – alone last night … and apparently slipped into another dimension. A dimension where every minute feels like an hour, every hour feels like a lifetime – a lonely life time.

When Gary is here, there is always something to do – something to take care of, help him with, clean up. And last night I found myself at wits end trying to figure out just what to do?

What to do? What to do?

So I watched his flight from Houston to LA on the computer, moved the laundry along, chuckling that my husband had shoved AT LEAST two complete loads in the washer before he left. Had to dry the stuff in three batches.

Whew! An hour gone, Gary is over Arizona – diverting from their flight path – I am assuming because of the weather I can see and not due to the fact that his plane has been hijacked – although I did weigh each for some time before making my final decision ….

Gary lands. Calls. Tells me to get to bed ...

Off to bed. Lay there and listen to the quiet, silent. No quiet soft breathing/snorfeling sounds I am so used to after 28 years and has lulled me to sleep for the past few days. I feel the empty bed, the cold side that I never, even after an entire year of it mostly being empty have never strayed over to.

Forty minutes later … can’t sleep.

Can’t stand the quite ...

...can’t stand the empty.

Up and off to my friend. Boot my buddy and listen to the familiar jet engine takeoff as it bootstraps itself into consciousness – having been peacefully sleeping – not a care in the world there. Just it’s crazy master in the middle of the night needing something … again.

Check on his flight to Australia. Took off 29 minutes late – but as I well know – they will make that up in the 14 hour flight and he is estimated to get in right on time. Right on time to take a taxi home, shower and head into work on his Monday morning while I am in Church in the middle of my Sunday afternoon.

Sunday morning FINALLY arrives – the part where I should be awake, that is. And the hours drag by as I wait for a very late church start of 1:00pm. It feels like an eternity. But I have things to do. Well, one thing to do.

Decisions, decisions. Get Jessie today? Get Jessie another day? I have to get her very late - after the administration building has closed and I have to call someone to let me in the building to check her out, or get her another day? It is not a hard decision. I miss her. I need someone in this huge, empty, lonely house. And Sunday is OUR DAY. Late or not, hard as this will make the day, I schedule to pick up Jessie at 4:30 – after being a good girl and staying for all of church. We did it last week and it was not too bad. Doing it alone is just a bit more tedious.

And she knows she comes home on Sunday – I am afraid of disappointing her. She is not busy on Sunday. If I get her another day – I am disrupting her schedule. So – today it is. Maybe those hours will go by fast.

Maybe not.

Time.

A funny thing.

Gary was here a week and a day and it flew by in a few heartbeats.

He’s been gone 18 hours and 15 minutes now and it feels like its been a week and a day …