Distancing and Goodbyes

There have been many times I've felt tempted to distance myself from my husband.  Always a bad idea.  Most of the time it stems from his deep commitment to his job.  Don't get me wrong, the kids and I are higher on his priority list than his job but his job is very demanding and important.  In order for him to do it right, he must make some family sacrifices.  There are times my emotions play tricks on me and I tell myself I don't matter to him.  He doesn't even notice me.  Well, if that's how his is, I'll make him miss me.  But I never follow through with this thought.  When the thought hits me, I curl up into him, let him wrap his big strong arms around me and revel in the joy and comfort of his touch, even if only for a moment.

There are times I am tempted to do my own thing and go back to just a single mom mentality while he sat around missing me.  "There!  Now you know how I feel".   No hugs and kisses and sincere goodbyes for you.  Nope, I'll just nonchalantly say bye while busy with other things as you walk out the door to do whatever it is you want to do that doesn't include me and if you insist on a kiss then it'll just be a quick peck.  I am tempted, but I don't follow through.  Instead, I turn TO him.  I may not tell him at that exact moment what's wrong with me because sometimes it's not always convenient for us to have an in depth conversation about my very complicated emotions.  But I sincerely say goodbye, with real hugs and real kisses.  I stop whatever has my attention at that moment to go to him to say goodbye, I give it my undivided attention.  I do the same for my kids.

You see, this is how my brain works...

What if I did follow through on my temptations.  What if I were too distracted to give him a real goodbye.  What if I moped around not being with him while he was home then he left and I barely said goodbye, acted as if it were inconvenient for me to do so.  He left not feeling that closeness from his wife and something happened.  To him or to me.  What if that half hearted busy goodbye was the last time we ever saw each other.  What if that was the last moment we have of our relationship.  I couldn't live with that and I can't bear the thought of leaving him with that.

The only thing certain in life is death.  We may not know when or how, but we know it's going to happen.  I'm not pessimistic, I'm realistic.  None of us are promised tomorrow or the next moment for that matter.  Anything could happen, from the more common tragedies such as car accidents, to unusual tragedies such as what happened in Aurora, CO, to terrorist attacks.   My husband's job isn't the safest and to be honest, neither is mine.

Have you ever seen the movie Uptown Girls with Brittany Murphey and Dakota Fanning?  In one scene, Brittany's character is telling Dakota's character about the last time she saw her parents.  They were getting ready to go on a tour without her and she was mad because it was the first tour they would take without her.  She locked herself in her room and refused to say goodbye.  Her parents ended up dying in a plane crash while on tour and she never saw them again.

So, I treat every goodbye as if it were our last because we never know if it will be.