A new way of thinking

So, Mr H is home and it's brilliant.   The first time he came home, after his year's placement in '08-'09, we had a really awful first week.  I resented him being in 'my' space, and he felt unwelcome; at the end of the week we sat down and talked about it and cleared the air but still it was difficult for both of us.  That had been a year of discovery, of ourselves more than anything else, and we had both rather enjoyed it - it was tough coming back to 'normal'.

This time we felt differently, being apart wasn't novel any more and it had no fixed end to it, which made a lot of difference. We missed each other badly and both felt constantly as though we were waiting for something.  We talked about the difficulties of him moving back, but it's just been a big relief and a happy week for both of us. Even though we have stuff everywhere in the house, it doesn't matter - we have time to sort it out.

It will take a while to get out of the way of thinking that he is just here for the weekend, or week.  For instance the other day I kept thinking "Ooh we must do so-and-so while Mr H is home" and then realised that we didn't have to cram our experiences / things that needed doing into a short space of time.

This evening I looked in the freezer which I had liberally filled with food a couple of weeks before Christmas. I thought "oh no when are we going to eat this stuff before he goes back to Scotland?...."

But, having said there is plenty of time for everything, one of our agreements is that we want to do stuff rather than waste time planning and never doing.  When you live 450 miles apart you realise how hard it is to do simple stuff, spontaneous visits or trips. Everything takes logistics and costs twice as much as it should.  It's really made us appreciate the things we can do with him living here.

This evening (New Year's Eve), Mr H has gone up to a friend's who is playing a live gig, he has gone as the roadie and will stay overnight.  When he mentioned it a month ago it was so nice to be able to say "Yep go for it, I won't come as it's not my kind of thing, I'll stay with Django and see our other friend" (ok, we do have more than 2 friends but you get my drift). The point being firstly that Mr H can go and it's just a couple of hours drive, and secondly that I don't have to spend every waking moment with him because he'll still be here next week, and the one after, and the one after...

Life is sweet!