The Traveling Blues

Erich is traveling this week. Again (for the third of four weeks in a row). This does not make me happy.

Granted, I am extremely pleased and proud that my fiancé has a good career as an electrical engineer, a career he highly enjoys and a job that pays decently. Let's be honest: a part-time piano teacher and part-time church musician does not make very much money. I feel so blessed to know I can continue to do what I love and be able to raise a family with my husband because he is so capable and employable. Therefore, Erich's job=a very good thing.

But, it is hard not to get a bit mopey when he has to be out of town. Since he works with power utility-customers in substations around the country, his travels are generally concentrated in the Spring and Fall, when the weather is less severe and it isn't as disastrous if something goes wrong and people are without power (like getting stuck without A/C or heat). He works for the tiny North American branch of ZIV, a Spanish company, which hopes to break into the market on this continent, and it seems to be finding its niche in new wind farms. A wind farm in Pennsylvania took him away last Fall for three to five days at a time, seven weeks in a row, right up until Thanksgiving. That was hard to get used to then, but I eventually got the hang of it. The idea is not foreign to me, as my dad traveled often for business throughout my whole life, so I'm kind of used to the head of household (or, in this case, future head of household) being gone for a few nights from time to time. But obviously, I'm much happier when he's home. And I was so spoiled this past summer. From May through July he didn't go anywhere. He and I did plenty of traveling, but it was on the weekends and it was together--quality time. I would have been very happy to continue thusly, especially as our wedding grows closer. All these last-minute details are easier to deal with when he can do them with me (or adequately distract me when it gets to be too much).

It was not to be. And so I mope, though I half-heartedly try not to. There's another new wind farm going up in Texas, which is where he is now. Pennsylvania needed more attention last week. I can't even remember where he was the week before. And he's going somewhere next week too. And these are not three- and four-day trips. They were/are, in chronological order by week, Monday-Friday, Sunday-Friday, Sunday-Friday, and Sunday-Thursday. Two days after he gets back next week, we're moving. Our wedding is five weeks from this Saturday (38 days from today). I'm at the point now where I know everything will get done, it will all work, and if anything doesn't, it probably wasn't all that important in the first place. But I need my partner with me, the one who's going through the same life changes as me, with me; I crave the physical--or at least geographical--nearness that pacifies me and lets me know that it will all be okay.

I'm just living for the honeymoon right now, and it can't come quickly enough. Erich, come home!