Monday, June 20, 2022

Home and Processing

Inspirational song: Nothing Ever Goes as Planned (Styx)

Oh, my. That was a rough way to get home. Don't get me wrong, there was nothing wrong with the flight itself. Barely a wobble in the air. Getting up at 3:30 am Tulsa time was hard enough. Not getting to go back to sleep again until 1 pm Mountain time was brutal.

I made it to the airport with more than enough time to clear a mostly empty security checkpoint. The line at the coffee shop heading into the concourse took longer. Apparently the person in front of me had a name of some sort of tequila club on it, and the two young women behind the counter commented on it after she ordered and moved down the row. I would have promptly forgotten about that detail, had I not grabbed my coffee and then immediately heard a group of 8 to 10 people say something celebratory about tequila, drawing my attention. They were raising glasses, doing shots while they waited to board their plane. Shots of tequila. In the gate area. At 4:45 in the morning. I flinched in pain at the notion.

I had sent texts to Mr S-P yesterday, saying things like, "I'm checked in online, and the plane says it's on time to land at 7." His phone decided he didn't actually need to see them. When I texted just past 6:30, to say the wheels had just touched down, I got responses back saying, "Shit! I thought you took off at 7!" I found a chair with a view of the curb where we had agreed to meet, and made myself stay awake playing casino games on my phone for an hour and a half. Yay.

We had errands in two different Denver neighborhoods that he thought he was going to run on the way to me. He dug up big pots full of raspberry and mint plants where they were trying to take over our garden, and offered them to two friends. So we delivered them in Aurora and Lakewood, before getting brunch and heading home. I was so tired when I got home, all I could do was strip off my travel clothes and tip over onto the bed, where I slept for three or four hours, mushed between all the quadrupeds who missed me for three days.

When I woke, I saw a text with more bad news. My neighbors had to put down bestest boy Barley tonight. He had been declining rapidly with lymphoma over the last few months. We knew this was coming and that it was close. It's just one more hit to my already bruised heart. I will need some quiet reflection time, to process everything from the last week. It has been a whole lot.

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