HDIF about Jeff's travel schedule? DYFF.

Dear LORD:

I do not want to travel. Please help me to not have to travel. It makes me feel trapped. Help Ruth to be OK while I am gone. We are soooo connected now. It is like tearing us to pieces for me to be gone so much.

MDDL:

Your MEQ today was coming into the living room and putting yourself in my lap, letting me rub your head and then falling asleep when I did so. Precious!

The way I feel about my travel schedule is trapped. We have discussed this before. I cannot tell you how much I do not want to travel, and how much I am not looking forward to my trip to Hopkinton tomorrow.

For one thing, I hate Boston. OK, maybe that's inaccurate. I do not hate Boston. I hate the suburbs of Boston. Boston itself is OK. Not great, but certainly a cut above Vegas, Dallas, or any number of towns I could name. Certainly, it is a great food town, and has lots of entertainment in the form of live theatre, music, and such.

But the suburbs of Boston? A desert. Nothing there but generic American culture. The kind I find nauseating. Outback Steak House. Burger King. McDonalds, Taco Bell. Blah, blah, blah. Combined with endless expanses of strip shopping centers, shopping malls, car dealerships, gas stations, and so on and on and on.

Not a lot here in terms of local color in other words. Certainly nothing like the Bay Area, which I find delightful and would enjoy very much if you were with me.

In other words, there is nothing, not one thing, absolutely and unequivocally nothing about the trip tomorrow which I find cool, fun, exciting or engaging. I will be a boring, stupid lame three days.

My one consolation is that I have found a yoga studio. I will enjoy that. That will keep me centered, grounded, and peaceful. I am glad I will get to have yoga for three more days on EMC's nickle.

In general, the way I feel about traveling is claustrophobic. When I think about climbing onto plane after plane after plane, and living in hotel after hotel after hotel, I want to run screaming from the room, clawing out my hair. It is the same feeling I feel when I am locked down and cannot move. My breath begins to come in gasps. I cannot think. I must escape. I must get free.

Being stuck on a plane for 13 hours yesterday was no fun. Especially the second flight where I was in a lot of pain and could not rest. I cannot really rest on planes anyway. I am just stuck there.

Also, my hotel room was not very comfortable this week. It was too noisy. My air conditioning clicked on and off noisily waking me up every few minutes. Other guests closed and opened their doors loudly, also waking me up. I could here the elevator. It was not peaceful.

When I am hear with you in our own home sleeping in our own bed, eating our own food, and hugging and kissing and such, I am at peace. I feel free. I feel relaxed. I feel well not trapped. I want us to stay with each other. I want to be in your presence. You calm me down. Make me feel like everything is going to be OK. Like you did tonight when the thing happened with the FSA. That was perfect. You looked into my eyes in a loving way, and said "Honey, I am sorry that happened to you." Like you are not affected by it. You were so helpful in that conversation. The way you did not react to my aggressiveness. The way you were just a perfect, loving wife, trying to calm down her distraught husband.

You have become this amazing person to me. I do not have you on pedastal, I don't think (well, maybe just a little), but still I find you wonderful, engaging, and exciting, while at the same time calming, relaxing and peaceful. This is very different from how our relationship was before we separated, when I found you very stressful. I don't know if it you that changed, or me. But it feels good.

Know this: I will be with you, thinking of you, praying for you, wanting your body, every minute of everyday I am traveling. That is all I can do until I come back to you.

Love,
Me