On the Road Again...

A bit of background.  Rey and I have been together for 22 years.  17 years ago, when we had just begun our family and the boys were 1 & 2, Rey became a truck driver.  It was a hard time for us, we were struggling financially and Rey had been a printer previously and could not find work, so truck driving just sort of happened.  It was hard.  I remember feeling like our lives were just on hold until Daddy got home.  He was gone for 2-4 weeks, depending on the company, and luckily we were living in St. Louis and I had my mom, dad, and one of my sisters living there as well because it was a lonely time for me.

Fast forward 16 years and we had moved, our family had grown by a girl, and we all had adjusted pretty well.  Rey would come home every 3 weeks or so and we would all spend our 3-4 days together having b-bques, playing board games, and soaking up as much time with him before he would leave again.  I even felt like it was beneficial to our relationship after so many years...I still got excited to see him when he was coming home, it was the highlight of my month!

Last June Rey was lifting some ramps and ruptured two discs in his back (I'm sorry this is getting long, but you are a gem for continuing to read!) He came home and has been home for 11 months rehabbing.  Lots of Doctor appointments, physical therapy and work conditioning, but for the most part he was here 24/7.  I thought I would tire of it, but I LOVED.IT.  After sixteen years of him being gone, I felt like we were making up for lost time.

And then, like a flash, he was better and 11 months was gone.  Last Thursday the Doctor gave him a work release and yesterday they had a truck and within hours I had to take him to St. Louis to get it.  It was like a slap in the face even though I knew it was coming.

We headed in, I had to stop for Starbucks, naturally.  I have a slight obsession with it, but you would too if you had to drive 100 miles to get it!  Yep, I had already cried half the drive in and you can tell.

 

I had to laugh at this, Savannah and I both "documenting" our Starbucks.  I'm a blogger now, I have to take a picture of every single thing, right? ;)

 

The place we were supposed to get the truck was downtown, and we arrived to no one there.  We thought it looked pretty desolate for being smack dab in the middle of downtown St. Louis. Actually, it wasn't downtown, it was right on the other side of the bridge, in Illinois.

 

I'll spare you the details, but we ended up having to wait quite a while.  Nothing like dragging it out and making it hurt more.   Waiting for the truck to be ready, Savannah & I decided to walk down and get a picture of the arch.  It was just down that deserted road past the trees.  Well, kinda.  Can you see it?  LOL

 

 It doesn't look very big from the other side of the river.  I can't tell you how many times I've been up in the arch growing up...but I digress.  This post is long enough, I don't need to ramble about that too!

Finally the truck was ready and it was time to load up his stuff and say our goodbyes.  I was a wreck.  At least he got a nice fairly new truck, that made me feel better. It's bad enough when I think of him living in that small space, I don't want it to be a crappy small space too.

I didn't really mean for this to get so long, sorry.  

I cried nearly the whole way home, I'm not sure how I didn't wreck the car.  Dylan and Savannah kept me company and I had to keep changing the radio when sad songs came on.  Do you know how many sad songs they play on the radio?  

Having all those years away from each other made me fiercely independent and strong.  Maybe too much.  I kind of felt like I had a wall up and was guarded because I didn't want to feel the pain every time he left.  That wall has crumbled in the last eleven months and it hurts.  The house seems empty and quiet.  People keep telling me that I'll adjust again, I'll get used to it again.  But you know what?  I don't want to.  I don't want to get used to being alone and without him.  I don't want to be guarded again.  So here I sit feeling it all and for now, I'm ok with that because I'm not sure I ever want to go back to being ok with him being gone.  

Since this is a running blog, I guess I should mention that the knee/leg issue is better.  Not totally, but enough that I think I can run this morning, and I NEED to run.  It's the only thing at this point that I know will make me feel better.