The Path of Thorns

Life feels different when certain people in your life aren’t around.  Not everything has the same feel – the days don’t have the same routine, and it all makes you miss the person more.  Even if it’s just for a brief while.

I haven’t been able to wake up and hear her outside babysitting.  I don’t wake up to the almost-empty coffee pot keeping warm just outside the bedroom.  I don’t hear that pretty laugh, I don’t walk in a room to see her head-over-heels enthralled in her Stephanie Meyer books.  The house doesn’t feel as warm, and many things around the house remind me of her.

It sounds silly – she’s only been gone a short time, and many couples actually get excited about this – but while I’m happy with myself, I’m a whole lot happier in my daily life when I get to see that pretty face on a good day or bad day.  When someone brings that much life and spark into your own, it’s sorely missed when it’s not physically there.

People need personal time, days and nights to themselves, to decompress and gather their thoughts and work on themselves if need be.  Or to just sit and not have to talk or worry about our expressions, or to let a bad mood pass through.

But on a rainy day, or multiple rainy days in a row for that matter, when you’re not working – you wish more than ever that her pillow was back on the bed, her clothes back in the closet and her smile lighting up your day all over again.  It makes you realize how lucky you are and how much that person means to you, and it makes you realize how much loving someone can make you feel that much lonelier when they’re not there for a long time.

I’m a lucky man, and I can’t wait to have my girl home.  I’ll cherish her all the more when she returns.