Friday was a rough day. Sometimes I have them, for no reason at all. I woke up and knew that an airport goodbye loomed ahead and I hate those. I’m not the greatest at goodbyes anyway but there is something about an airport that makes it worse. I think it’s because in the privacy of my own home, after I close the front door, I can curl up on the couch and it’s ok when a tear or two trace my cheek because no one else sees it. To make matters worse, this wasn’t even an airport goodbye. This was an “I’m-going-to-drop-you-off-at-the-airport-to-pick-up-your-rental-car-goodbye.” But I still knew it would be another two weeks until I get to see him again.
The airport is still too public. So I bit my bottom lip as I hugged him goodbye and tried to suck it up so he wouldn’t know how hard it is to say goodbye to him. It always is but he knows that. There is no sense saying it and making it seem like I’m mad we have to be apart. I’m not angry. Just lonely without him. My so-called strength didn’t last long. I walked in through the double doors and glanced back at his tail lights and felt my eyes well up at the sight of him driving away.
I spent the rest of the day tooling around Seattle. He told me where the mall was so I cruised in and bought a couple shirts that were on sale. I spent most of the day feeling like I was walking in a fog and I couldn’t shake it. It’s that feeling of having a part of me missing.
In the afternoon, I wandering into a Barnes and Noble. I have been into Barnes and Noble before but never did the books seem to surround me like they did that day. I felt like I could just camp out there all weekend and read everything on the shelves.
I went to the Children’s section to looking for a baking cookbook I used to have as a little girl. My mom gave it away but I still want it so I always look whenever I happen into a bookstore. As I scanned each wall, trying to figure out where the kids’ cookbooks would be, there was a pregnant woman who looked to be in her early thirties with a little girl who was maybe 3 or 4, all dressed up in what could only be her Easter outfit. Nevermind that it was two days early. The little girl had a book in each hand and her mom wasn’t without a pile either. As they sat down at a little table, the little girl asked in a tiny but clear and polite voice, “mommy, can you read me If You Give a Mouse a Cookie?”
And that little voice was the sweetest sound I think I had ever heard.
I didn’t think I could really keep it together after hearing a request so sweet so I proceeded out without finding the cookbook for which I went in. As I walked back into the greater store area, a man walked by who wore the same cologne he does. A leftover tear from earlier crept out, over the corner of my eye.
I’m not sad, only missing him, and thinking of last weekend when I fell asleep on his shoulder on the couch on a lazy Saturday afternoon.
I have never felt such an amazing emotion that is this love.
