Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love. ~George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)

He's gone again. Probably somewhere over the Atlantic right now.

At 6:30am he left to pick up his last Starbucks (Venti, quad, mocha!!!) and McDonald's for the boys and me. I couldn't eat much, robotically taking a few bites of pancakes.

Shannon met us at our house to offer moral support and immortalize the experience with a camera. How ironic that we document the pain, no?

She asked me how I was doing and I immediately broke down. I was holding it in all night long and that made me crack. But it was a neccessary release of pressure.

We saw him off this morning and his flight was delayed so it was bittersweet to lengthen the goodbyes. (It was nicely private though because Delta put us in their Crown room club, or whatever it's called. I think the only reason the dozen business men on their cells and laptops didn't mind our hyperactive kids was that Terry was in uniform.)


We hugged and kissed outside the elevator. He didn't want to see us off at the gate, it just gets too emotional to watch him take the "walk down the plank." I felt the need to tell him the things you would say to someone if it was the last conversation, I don't know why.

"I'm so glad we pushed through early parenthood, college, law school, grad school. I love you and wouldn't change a thing."

I suppose it has something to do with the title of this entry.

If I continually write about college, it's because it was our life for the first five years of our marriage. We were children raising a child. Shudder (And yet, Gabe scored in the 99th percentile for the NNAT just last month so I guess we did something right.)

I came home took a Valium and slept for four hours. (I had a TMJ incident during his leave. Haven't been able to close my jaw completely for a week now. The Valium is supposed to relax the muscle and allow the disk that was injured in my jaw, to slip back into place. Whatever, drugs that induce sleep are my best friend.)

It's strange because on the one hand, I'm ecstatic to know that we are in the final countdown to him coming home permanently, but also scared, like we're pushing our luck or something.

I took Heidi's advice and took a lot of pictures during his visit. I took NOT ONE of him coming home. I preferred to bask in the happiness of his return and not worry about getting a good shot :) But about half way into his leave I picked up the pace and took some pics and video, mostly of the boys wrestling.