And Then I Saw Him: Part 2

I hate to disappoint you all.

But the rest of my weekend with my husband was probably only exciting to me.

It was basically three days of me being shellacked to his leg.

I wasn't letting go of that man if it killed me.

I'd have followed him into a little boy's room if he'd let me.

Basically, we just lazed about and held hands and walked around town and hugged and ate out and kissed and shopped and cuddled and toured the historic district and, well, you get the picture...

We were together, which is all we wanted.

But as far as the rest of the world is concerned, when it comes down to it, we're not terribly exciting people.

After all, we spent all of Friday driving around and finding all my favorite places: Sam's Club, the craft store, Old Navy, and - my home away from home - Target.

Trust me, when I saw the big red bull's eye on the horizon, I screamed with joy.

And sheer relief that I wouldn't have to live in a town so forsaken that it didn't have a Target.

"You didn't act that excited even when you saw me," my husband said, rolling his eyes.

"That's because Target hasn't lost more than 80 pounds and still looks the same as she always has," I replied.

Then I kissed him.

Because I love him, and I was with him in my favorite place in the whole wide world: The Target parking lot.

Then, in new heights of excitement, we ate dinner at Carraba's and went to bed before midnight.

The next day, we toured the historic part of the city, where I fell head over heels in love with everything my eyes could see. Stores and markets and restaurants and landmarks and boats and docks and piers and dear heavens, my Southern blood is pumping just thinking about it.

The hubs and I picked out about 63 restaurants we wanted to try out and selected several tours we planned to take family and friends on when they came to visit.

The hubs explained a bunch of nautical terms to me, which I pretended to understand, and then I forced him into a candy shop where they made their own taffy. I explained the terminology associated with pralines and coconut and chocolate-covered strawberries, and once again, we were both speaking the same language.

There was more shopping and eating and beach-combing later that day. We got lost about 17 different times, although, in my defense, this time it wasn't all my fault.

My sailor boy was supposed to be guiding me with his new cell phone's map gadget, which apparently meant saying things like, "Oh, wait, um, you should have turned left about two blocks ago."

It was the few times that weekend I looked at my husband without a smile on my face.

Well, that and the time when we went in to see the base housing director.

We had been told that flirtation would get you everywhere with these women in the housing office, and this girl wanted a tour of every model I could possibly see.

So, I gave my husband a good old pep-talk, something along the lines of, "Now you get in there and bat those eyelashes and smile and compliment the heck out of her figure because Momma wants a brand new house!"

My husband, however, maintained his decorum and respect. He was nothing if not upstanding and reverent. Not an eyelash was batted. He didn't even try to subtly flex his biceps.

And all Momma got was three printed-out floor plans of the possible housing models we could be assigned come June.

Not that that stopped me from drawing out my newly decorated dream home in spades once we got back to the hotel room. I'd gone so far as to draw in my plum-colored guest bathroom shower curtain when my husband told me to shut up and put the schematics away.

Sunday was more morose.

I contemplated exactly how I could call the school and tell them, "Remember when I said I'd finish out the school year before moving? Yeah, well, I changed my mind. I'm not coming back. You're going to need a permanent sub for the next five weeks. Tell the kids I love them!"

I also wondered how I could fake an injury that would require me to be hospitalized immediately and would keep me in South Carolina with my hubby for at least another week.

I even debated simply staging a sit-in, of sorts. Or, as I was calling it, a Cling-On.

I planned on grabbing my husband around the waist firmly and not letting go until everyone agreed it would be better for my mental stability to just let me stay there already and move into our house early.

But apparently, my mental stability wasn't all that important to anyone else but me.

And somehow or other, I found myself having to say good-bye to my husband.

I cried; I may have even screamed. I acted like a petulant child.

And then I left.

Six hours later, I was still weeping as I pulled into my driveway.

Even the schematics for our possible new homes couldn't cheer me up.

The next five weeks couldn't pass fast enough.

I knew then that I'd always have this slightly sick feeling in my stomach; this aching in my heart that let me know a key part was missing.

Later that night, on the phone, as I sat at my computer desk all alone, I broke into hysterical sobs when the hubs called me to say goodnight.

I hated, in that moment, everything about what I was going through.

It stood in stark contrast to the weekend I'd just had.

So full of love, so full of laughter, so full of moments of rolling over in bed in the middle of the night to find my husband finally laying there.

I wanted that back.

Thirty-eight more days left to go...

***

For those of you that missed it, here's Part 1.

And thank you all for your support throughout all of this. You really have carried me through the hardest bumps in this road.

And as for the rest of you, have a wonderful Wednesday! Workout Wednesdays will return next week, but I'll be back tomorrow with some more normal ramblings!