And just like that, he's gone.

It has not gotten easier. People often assume it does.
We have been doing this dance so long, it's easy to think it comes naturally.
But it doesn't.
To go to bed one night together and wake up with the bags packed, sitting at the door.
The phone rings, the van pulls up and just like that- he's back out there.
I wouldn't change it though.
I get to be the lone star and in a way he does too and we both absolutely need that to be who we are.
I am here holding down the fort, taking care of our family and he is out there doing what he loves. Just like me.
I love being on tour but maybe more so, I love being at home. Sometimes anyway.
Touring is not for everyone. As romantic as it sounds, I know very few people that can take it.
He can take it. And I have to take, the being apart, part- with a smile.
Having kids makes things more interesting. Long gone are the days of Eddie climbing in the van or on the plane and me climbing into bed. I remember once getting into bed after he left and I didn't get out for three days. I didn't eat or answer the door. I didn't make any calls. This was before Eddie had a cell phone, I would have to wait for him to find a pay phone and when they were in Europe, we'd go days without talking. I never knew when he would call. I would sit by the phone, LITERALLY, just sit and wait and wait and then it would ring and we'd talk until the phone card ran out. Click. Just like that, he'd be gone again.
So I did that for a while. I was sad and pathetic and I didn't have any friends to snap me out of it. I was new to this town and to this crazy life and I had to learn everything the hard, slow way. But I am glad. If someone had walked me through it, who knows, I might hijack everything years later and go through it all again, my way. I'm like that. Humans are like that. It's like a mini- midlife crisis. When you want to redo, go back, start over. I prefer to do things the hard way, first and then be done with it. It's not really by choice, I think it was how I was born... I have never taken the easy way- for better or worse.
After awhile I realized I couldn't sit around and wait for him anymore. I mean, I was "waiting" for him emotionally but physically, I couldn't do it. I had to get a life and then figure out how to have them meet, harmoniously, when he came home. It was weird and complicated and messy at times. I tried working, I tried traveling. I got some friends but it dawned on us one night, on the phone (him probably freezing in a urine smelling pay phone) what we really needed to do. Where the natural course of our relationship was headed.
So we had kids.
Kids make things better, or at least they did for us. They made things make sense and they (he) gave me a purpose. I had no idea, before I had Quattro, that I was suppose to be someone's Mother. And I guess not just anyones, I mean, I am completely convinced that I was suppose to have him.
In a very freaky way, he has taught me so much about myself, that I had no idea. Not just how to be a Mother and how to carry on in life living like I am NOT the most important thing but he taught me weird stuff. How to care about the world. How to help things get better. How to stop complaining and start doing. What a fucking concept...
There are parts to having kids that I don't like. When they are too young to understand what is going on. They are just sad in their own way. When sad doesn't really have a name for them, but you can see it on their face when he leaves. When he calls and when you talk about him. That part sucks.
When they get older and understand he is leaving- that sucks too. They get that he is going to leave AND come back, but they also know a little bit about time and that is hard for everyone.
Now that I have one of each, the one who "gets it" and the one who gets none of it, I'm oddly getting it myself. The whole thing.
I have been typing this thing over the course of an entire day. I have shopped the market, given baths, made 3 meals, tended to my sick son and kept a toddler busy. I have walked dogs, fed them and their two cat friends. I am tired and I guess I am telling you this, whomever you are, because over the next nearly 4 months- I will be tired. Many of my posts will not make sense and they will jump all around and there will be many, many errors. I will not proof read before I hit "publish post".
I will just post. And when my husband comes home all will be right with the world and our son and daughter will be really, really happy.