Grizzley Bear

My trip home for the holidays is less than a week away. I am so excited to see everyone, especially Tabba. But part of me is not ready to go. I usually don't mind leaving Brad behind and heading home. Not this trip. He has been so gentle and sweet for the past several months, I am going to miss him very badly.

Home will always be home, but I don't live there anymore. My home is now beside Brad. I thought it would never happen, but it has. I always knew I would never feel like anywhere else could ever be home. But time marches on and it has pulled me right along with it. I no longer feel like an outsider here. I know my way around the entire state, I know the local vanacular, I am very acustomed to the weather, I live here now.

I worry that my big strong husband will be really lonely for two weeks with a quiet house and no one to come home to. I will miss his huge arms wrapped around me, so tight that I can't think and have to surrender to sleep. I know how cold it is and worry about not being here to make sure he has a healthy dinner and a nice warm lunch the next day.

I guess what I am getting at is that Turner and I are Brad's family and he is ours. Just doesn't feel right not being together. Moving away changed our dynamic. I had to learn to rely on him and he on me. And it has been this way long enough that I really do like it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those whiney, dependent, unsure of herself women who has to have her husband's permission for everything. I have my own friends, my own life seperate from his.I have driven cross country on more than one occasion by myself. I fly all the time by myself, or in the last two years, wrangling my little boy with me. I lived in the US's fourth largest city for two years. Drove every where by myself and loved it. But I also love coming home and sitting down to dinner with my grizzley bear of a husband. I love how Ward and June Cleaver we can be. Cold nights spent down stairs after dinner just sitting in front of the fire, enjoying each other. I will miss bed time for Turner. We share the bathing and the getting him dressed. Then we all crowd into Turner's bed and read stories, our heads squished together on one pillow. I know Brad will miss Turner more than anyone can imagine. They are glued together from the minute Brad walks through the door at night.

I will miss my gruff other half even more because he's not a phone person. I'll call him every night. He will ask about our day, he will talk to Turner, tell me he loves me, and we'll say goodnight. All together it'll take about three minutes of phone conversation per night. Really, it's about all he talks when we're at home together, but I am sitting in his lap sharing his recliner, so it's better.

So I will really look forward to the day he gets to fly in. Then it will feel like a complete trip home. We'll eat too much, open presents, and I'll get to sit in his lap again. Then it'll be time for the Currier's to pack it up and leave. Head back to our home. Get back to the winter routine as we know it. Watching the weather, Brad salting the driveway for me the night before a storm, sledding, and being a family. All things that used to seem so foriegn, now are my daily life, and it's a life I truely love.