I'm BAAAAAAACK...

Hello to my 5...count 'em FIVE ... faithful readers =) haha seriously though...to anyone who reads my meager blog, i apologize for my damn near 5 month hiatus from writing. It's been a difficult, but enlightening, few months...and while I wish I could write about my experience these past few months, it cuts too "close to the bone" , so to speak...I just didnt feel I had it in me, to write of what has happened, especially as it comes to my family. Sometimes, situations become so impossibly personal, that to put them down in writing, for everyone to see, becomes too intimate. I hope you understand.
A few days ago, I was given a great gift...to fly with one of my closest, dearest friends...I didnt realize he had even read my blog! but when he came back to my galley, sat down and started telling me he had missed my writing, well...I knew I needed to exercise my 'creative muscle' and get back to it....that's the thing about friends like this....he sat down, and without so much as a hello, he said....'you need to start writing again'. BAM! then, he proceeded to tell me what he loved about my writing....i was stunned. i didnt know anyone even read my blog, let alone, remembered what was in it....it was almost as if I had been writing for myself, and no other. But to this dear friend, he remembered my $1 story, and it nearly made me cry. This friend of mine, you see, is one of those magnetic people you've ever met...someone that you are just drawn to....someone that makes you think about the world around you, but at the same time, makes you feel as if you and he are the only 2 people in the world who exist. He's magnanimous that way....and for him to encourage me to write again, .... well.....i will be forever grateful....he got me out of my slump, like no one else could do. And even though he and the boys DUMPED me for an 'all-boys club' last night, lol, I will always love him.
So here i sit, trying to warm my bones as the freezing cold arctic air of Leipzig Germany swirls around me. I actually just braved the elements an hour ago, and made my way to my favorite little italian trattoria a few blocks away...it was worth every frozen step. And yes, some of my friends wouldnt take 2 steps towards walking into this restaurant (yes, yes, I KNOW you dont like it!!) I absolutely CRAVE this small cafe's lasagna, and I simply had to have it. It's a great little place to watch the world float by, and this evening was not an exception....most intriguing to me was a couple, sitting at a little table for 2 on the balcony. This was one of those 'beautiful couples' that was impossible to ignore. But what I found so interesting was not their beauty, but their body language....try as I might, I couldnt figure out if this couple was on their FIRST date, or their TWENTY FIRST date....they were so locked in each other's gaze that to look at it, you would have known they were in love....but were they? it was also the same gaze you would give a new lover, as you hoped they were going to take you back to your home to ravage you after you enjoyed a long delicious dinner....I couldnt tell. But i was entranced, nonetheless... and then it made me sad. Sad, because it made me miss Chad so much.....made me miss the way he looks at me out of the corner of his eye, when he is thinking something that I am hoping to decipher... made me miss the way he strongly grabs hold of my hand, even when we are just shopping for groceries at 10 o'clock on a Saturday night....made me miss the fierce look in his eye, when he is singing his favorite song at karaoke, staring at me, and only me, with a fire that breathes through my soul.....yes, dear reader, I may seem to live a glamourous life of travel and exploration, but it can get very, very lonely.... and to love someone, and have them be 9,000 miles away, is tortuous at times. It's cold, lonely nights like this, that I can hardly bear it.... as much as I love to hear his voice over Skype, it shakes me to the core that I am so far away from him....I pretend sometimes that it is HE who is overseas, deployed like he has been many times before, to Iraq or some other foreign nation....but it only lasts so long. I know that sooner, rather than later, the tables will be reversed, and it WILL be him who is overseas, and it will be me, sitting at the computer, waiting for him to log on....And then the sheer torture of being alone ONE MORE DAY in this hotel room, really hits....and I pray, to the gods of the scheduling world, that they will PLEASE bring me home on the day they have promised. That i will ACTUALLY get to go home when they say I will, so that i can wrap my arms around my wonderful man, and forget that the world around us exists.....if only for a moment. For you see, I may have my wonderful friends, and crazy insane nights of running around whichever city I find myself in, but it only lasts so long.....yes, I have an insanely wonderful time when I am out on my trips...that is why I started this job.....but it is TRULY the little things in life, that make life worthwhile.....the feel of my down comforter as I snuggle into bed....a bite of something from my favorite little restaurant down the street from my house...the feel of my love's strong sinewy arms wrapped around me as he loves me like no other......it is the 'little things' .... but they are NOT little...they are oh-so-big...and they mean the world to me....
And so, dear friend, as I send this blog post out to the worldwide web of information, I hope that you know that I thank you for taking the time to read my crazy posts....that I thank you for taking the time to share in my life with you.....that I thank you, friends like Ray, that encourage me beyond a shadow of a doubt to write with the vim and vigor that God has granted me...that I love you, Chad, no matter where in the world we find ourselves - I will always come home to you, and no other......that I present you with me, with all my faults, failures and triumphs to be seen....that I thank you.....for being there even when I'm not.....that I THANK YOU.
A wonderful good night to you all......