First Day Back

Jaimie went back to work on Monday.

Ordinarily, that shouldn’t be a topic worthy of a blog—June 1, 2020, Woman Goes to Work—but these are crazy times in which we live.

We tried to figure out the last day she was there. She came to Iowa to visit me for the weekend of March 6th, worked the week of March 9th, and then was with me in the hospital starting on March 16th. Which would have made her last day of work Friday, March the 13th.

Whoa…how ominous was that??

March 13 to June 1. Half of March, all of April, and all of May. Ten weeks. An entire summer vacation. And while we didn’t do anything, it did feel like we did ran the entire gambit of human emotion. The lockdown was horrible and wonderful and glorious and terrifying and way too long yet far too short and still going strong in some places yet in other places (see the idiots where I live in South Carolina) is now completely forgot.

Ten weeks.

And part of me feels like I wasted it. How moronic is that? That’s me saying:

“I should have done more with my quarantine!” Like what? Take a trip! Oh that’s right— none of us could go anywhere! That’s why we all watched/loved The Tiger King—it wasn't that it was good, it was because we literally had no where else to go.

To make matters even more annoying, she’s back at work just as my summer vacation begins. Just as I’m thinking about long weekends of social distancing in state and national parks, she’s being treated like she’s been on vacation for the past 10 weeks.

And while, yes, she has been away, she’s been working this whole time! I don’t know about you all and your significant others, but my wife has been on so many Zoom meetings I could pick all of her co-workers voices out of a line up.

“UMMMMMM.....high pitched Southern Drawl—you must be Stacey!”

FULL DISCLOSURE: ALL OF HER CO-WORKERS HAVE LOVELY VOICES AND NONE OF THEM ARE NAMED STACEY.

Not only had she been working hard from home this whole time, but she's also been keeping me straight. I’m on a ton of medicine, and she was the one timing it all out. With her gone on Monday, I couldn’t remember what I took when. My mom had come over to sit with me, but I’m not good at letting other people help me. Jaimie’s the only person I want to know that I can’t do everything on my own right now. So of course when she got home, at 6pm after a full day, a wave of hunger hit me and I threw up after the second bite of pasta.

The next day was better, however. The next day was better too, and yesterday and today have been even better than that.

That’s all we can ask for, right? That today is better than tomorrow? The problem is, I miss her. I loved having her around all day, everyday. “Oh sure, you’re newly weds.” I hear some of you shouting in the back. But we’re not your typical newlyweds. We’ve spent a lot of time together, and the more I have, the more I want.

That. That is all we can ask for.