Alone

Some "together" days I feel more alone than "TDY" days. Even though Superman is not deployed, I'm beginning to feel that he was more present in my life while he was gone for training or on a deployment, than he is when he is here.

I find myself pretty much on my own most of the time. Our time together is more about checklists and tiptoeing around eachother. And every conversation is about being somewhere other than here -- a new job somewhere else, an event that is happening somewhere else.

Earlier in my career, I moved a lot and had crazy rotating shifts that left me exhausted and a few times turned to medical emergencies. After that, I developed maladjustment anxiety and it took me a few years to get myself rooted again and reassure myself that the rug isn't going to be swept up from under me.

Part of that anxiety is coming back since I'm in a place where Superman is always drumming up to leave. It's hard to find calm when there's a storm of hypotheticals raging.

But at the beginning and end of each day, I have to remind myself that whatever is raging in the mind of the other half... when Superman's always looking to get out of town and escape from somewhere other with us...

I am here. now. Present at this moment. Grounded in my work and life and school. That I don't have to worry about instability because things are stable here. My thoughts and my actions are one. There is no where else I would rather be than taking in this second, now.

I don't have to worry about skipping town, or where I'm going to live, which bed I'll lay in or couch I'll plop on at the end of the day, or what's going to happen from one day to the next. I'm not thinking about any other job or life than what I have here, now.

That's freedom to me, now. And Manhattan is home to me, now.

And when Superman gets the itch to go, I let him go. After all, you can't make someone be where he doesn't want to be.

Heard this song and it totally got my wheels turning last night...