Separation Anxiety: The Life Of An Engineers Wife.

I felt the warmth of his breath on my ear before I heard the words from his lips.

Before I was even aware that i was awake or asleep, his body was folded in half over my side of the bed, almost in a perfect hug.

Enveloped in his love, I hear his voice and it perked my ears right up, jolting   my eyes open.
      All I saw was the back of his freshly cut hair, as he held me tightly against himself.

To me, he is greater.
Smarter.
He sees the big picture and doesn't get overwhelmed easily.
He's more patient than I am, more gentle in correcting our kids.
He cleans the house without complaining.
He's the fun parent.
He cooks better.... no it's true. He legit cooks way better than I do.

Next to him, I felt less than.
      (This is a struggle I deal with at times.)

My hand cups the back of his head and neck as he speaks gently into my ear with as much tenderness as he does authority. His confidence pumps air into my lungs and I am buying into his whole vision, even if it's total crap, I am hooked on what he is selling and it makes me feel alive.

I knew he was saying goodbye and good morning.

I fucking hate these goodbyes. 

I'd rather he just left without a single noise or kiss at all, quite honestly.

Just put your stupid loud belt on in your truck and not heat up the iron at all to make your shirt nice and perfect looking.....leave without a single sound and I wouldn't feel so bad, maybe. 

For my own sake, can you just for once be a little disheveled? 
      Leave for the air port with a wrinkle in your shirt?

I could see the sun coming up as the light began to illuminate our room through the slits in our blinds      and I knew he was leaving me.

I take a deep breath and soak him in. He turns a little and I can smell his deodorant through his super stiff, ironed shirt, which makes my mouth water. (yes, I love the smell of his deodorant and I've craved that smell ever since I was pregnant with Conrad....)

His six feet, five inches doubled over me, as I lay in bed, he and whispers.....

"God,  Love on my wife and give her grace to get through the next few days without me-not just "get through" but conquer these days and love our babies even when she's tired and exhausted. Protect her and comfort her. Be her God. Love on her. Grace her with more patience than she knew was possible. Cover her with Joy through the moments of frustration and difficulty. You are enough for her. Let your adoration for her be what spurs her towards a greater confidence in herself and her ability to mother her children."

ALRIGHT GOD! I'M FREAKING AWAKE NOW!

(do we have time to make-out real quick? Hot praying husband???)

Tears pool up in my closed eyes as I spoon my daughter and kiss my husbands lips, saying goodbye.

There simply is nothing sexier than a man who prays for his wife without her asking him to, and praying exactly what she needs at that exact moment.....it's faith affirming and LOVE affirming at the same time.

For the first time in a long time I felt so homesick for my husband who hasn't yet left me. My heart is hurting and missing him, and yet he's. right. there!

He kisses me and we say our "I love you, be safe, call me...." 

Just hours before, we had fought one of our worst fights in all of the seven years we had been wed.

I wanted to curl up into a ball and just die in a dark, gross, cave that night.

I sat on the toilet in our bathroom sobbing after we had hashed our shit out and said mean-nasty things to one another. He has the ability to love me like no one loves me, and yet holds my heart in his hands, ready to crush it-squash it-consume it-make it into nothingness....he has that power to love me more and hurt me more than anyone ever could or ever will. What else is a lover for, than to crush or consume you completely? 

I sat on the toilet planning my next move. Could I sleep on the couch and cry myself to sleep? We've never done that-I've never slept apart from him in my anger....shit has never really hit the fan that hard before.

"God, don't abandon me now!"

Could I dare humble myself enough to crawl back into bed with him after he had murdered my heart and let him possibly stretch his arm over me and possibly pull me back in? Could I endure him? Was I brave enough to swallow my pride for the sake of reconciling with him....Whether he would adore me or break me, would I lower myself down under him for the possibility of dying to him or living towards something greater with him? It was a mighty gamble to pull the sheets back and lay next to him again. I felt so alone and scared.

We fell asleep that night both with wet cheeks and soaked eye lashes. Our hearts felt wounded. We both were stressed about the future, and the present and weren't coping well. What we needed to do was go smash some glass plates somewhere in the desert and scream to the top of our lungs, but instead we used the other as our personal punching bag. Nothing in me wanted to trudge on through the muck with him. I felt dead and sick. My body felt useless. My insides felt numb. I felt the sting of the tears he had caused me burning my cheeks. I wanted to grab him and cry into his chest and just find my refuge there under the blankets curled up on his bare chest. In that moment, loved him and yet, I wanted to take all of the hate, fear, pride & insecurities inside of me and beat the shit out of him. It was the perfect intensity of love and hate all coupled into one. A storm of passion & disgrace that no one could have really anticipated, BECAUSE, sometimes a fight is never really about the thing that you're fighting about. It's always about something much deeper, it's just that we needed something to get the ball rolling, something that pisses us off and gets us to talk. Gets us on the same page again, towards the same goals-together.

Begrudgingly, I accepted his apologies and said my apologies. My pride is a giant monster which needs to be killed continually. I ache and mourn it's death when he kills it. My husband is good at anticipating my pride or my "love of self" and is good at completely bludgeoning her before she can even realize how freaking cute she looks with her red lipstick on..... he see's when "she'" is being a total "self whore" and shuts it down. What else is a helper for than to sanctify me until I see how utterly gross I am and how much i need Jesus..... 

It was 4am, on a Tuesday. I heard his alarm chime, he then kicks the covers off with a tired sigh. I hear the way his feet slid into his slacks as he quickly whipped them up his legs and tucked his perfectly ironed pink and white stripped "skinny-tall" fitted Gap shirt into his pants. I heard his belt clank as he pulled it through the belt loops and then secured it tightly through it's metal clasp....He pulled open his sock drawer searching for a brown sock that matched his outfit. I blinked my eyes open and sat up out of bed offering my help. He refused it with a sweet smile and continued dressing himself. I closed my eyes in a tired stupor and wrapped myself closer  to my baby, almost consuming her. Our breaths became in sync as we fell back asleep.

I felt sincerely concerned for him as I heard his key fit perfectly into our doors lock and turn, securing itself shut. Why was I so sad this time? I felt like I was seeing him off to war, just another few days off to another city where he would work on a project and go out to dinner with his co-workers and rest peacefully in freshly washed white sheets with a chocolate mint on his pillow..... he wouldn't wake at midnight when his four year old son needed a drink, and again at 3am when his son was having night terrors that kept him consoling for a good five or so minutes until the screams became moans and the moans became sighs and our boy was back to sleep....the dinosaurs who once tormented his sleep-state had been slayed by his poor tired mommy. I was a little jealous too that he got to leave and work for a few days away from all of us.

It's days like today that I feel like If only I could switch rolls with my husband and give him my "PA-GINA" (as Elle Calls it) in exchange for his big old brain and masters degree, I'd totes be an engineer and sleep in some bad ass-freshly laundered sheets and not have a four year old in miles to wake me the hell up from my deepest sleep...... I'd trade you for a day or two maybe.

Cause god knows I haven't washed our sheets in a long time and SRSLY need a day off from this thing they call "work at home mom!" 

Our jobs aren't easy. I know this. You deal with idiots sometimes at work, and today I said to Conrad, "Well, if you're going to act like an idiot and push Tenley Down for no reason, then you'er going to have a time-out and think about how not to be an idiot towards your friends...." 

I Love you Dustin. Come home please.
            I have major separation anxiety.......