This has been a rough week for me. Earl has been away on business since early Monday. We’ve chatted a couple of times a day via the usual “power couple” channels… mostly e-mail and an occasional phone call. We haven’t explored the Instant Messenger arena yet, mostly because we’re saving that for a “naughty” occasion. The fact that Earl has his work laptop with him should make that adventure most interesting, especially for the people in his company’s IT department.
Anyways, I’ve been tossing around the lonely and frustrated emotions quite a bit, despite my whole +NRG vibe I had going on on Tuesday. Don’t get me wrong, I truly felt, and still strongly feel, a positive vibe going on in my life, and I am shunning all the negativity I can. And believe me, it seems like there’s negativity flowing everywhere these days. Cranky salespeople and cashiers, cranky office building slumlords, cranky co-workers and today, cranky J.P.
Earl and I had quite the phone conversation last night about this whole commuting relationship / power couple thing we have going on. Not that I was questioning our relationship or anything drastic like that, God no, when I said “I Do” I meant “I Do Forever”. The foundation of our relationship is rock solid, there’s no denying it. But I had to admit to him, and myself, that I am quite jealous of his current situation. Granted, he’s in eastern Ohio right now. No offense to readers from the Buckeye State, but he’s not really in the sexiest area of the country. He commutes 700-750 miles roundtrip. He spends his evening in one of two malls or watching the crap currently offered on his hotel television. Not exactly the jet-set life one dreams of, but he’s making the most of it. But I am jealous, because I want to be living the same boring existence with him, by his side, in Ohio. I like long drives. I like banged up malls. I like hotel rooms. Especially when I’m with him. But no, I’m stuck in a city that I wanted to leave long ago.
I suppose I’m being selfish. We have a beautiful new house. We are in good health, we have a wonderful son in our cat and we have everything that one could dream of. Except I want Earl by my side, right here, right now.
He assures me that this is temporary. Once knows the future of his work projects with any degree of certainty, he’ll decide which location needs the most attention and we’ll relocate there, or not. But it’s going to take a year or so to figure out that variable, but for now, he needs to do what he’s doing.
I couldn’t be prouder of him. And I understand what has to be, has to be. I just gotta get over myself.
Speaking of living up to commitments, I have been a beta tester for Microsoft, and am currently enrolled in the Windows XP SP2 beta test. It was going well, until my hissy fit of a couple weeks ago when I decided that I needed to stick a toe in the Linux water and wiped out my hard drive. Microsoft sent me an e-mail recently letting me know that the latest build of XP SP2 was available for download and by the way, how’s the beta testing going? A commitment is a commitment, so I wiped out my hard drive again and am in the process of downloading the latest beta test candidate. I haven’t been very good at staying focused on projects in the past. I intend on changing that.
