He was due in near midnight last night. Sadly he sat in Miami for a couple of hours because of lightning, then another because of an alleged mechanical, then one more to wait for a flight crew. This meant he wasn’t able to make his final connection from Chicago, the hub of doom. He called around 7 p.m. which I knew wasn’t good as he should have been flying somewhere north of the Mason-Dixon. With an air of resignation he relayed the news that best case scenario he would be flying into Chicago around midnight and would rent a car, hopefully to arrive home around 3 a.m.
This was decidedly not good news for me since I was exhausted and about to put the kids into bed. I had already called a friend to pray for me as I was committed to treating my children with gentleness and respect. I bitched a little about his itinerary which had him flying around Venezuela at 6 every morning and then leaving at 11 the morning he was coming home. You never want the last flight out of anywhere, especially Chicago. I mentioned this and then felt guilty knowing he was tired and frustrated, facing another flight and then a long drive. I apologized.
“You don’t need to apologize,” he said.
“Well I’m sorry to be bitching at you about something out of your control. I just wish you seemed more upset.”
“I already moved past anger. It is what it is.”
“I know. I guess…OK, here’s my request, when you are about to hurl a bag of poo at me, would you please acknowledge that you are hurling a bag of poo and be a little apologetic so that I can be all sweet and, “It’s not your fault, I understand, etc”?
“Yeah, I can do that.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
When he travels, which averages out to every couple of months, he is gone for about a week. He has had a couple of trips that have been under seven days, but by and large they are closer to eight. The hard thing is it only averages out to every couple of months, which means that he can be home for four months then ( like this past Spring) be gone three weeks out of a six week period. I realized this week that this is not working for me and that we can make some requests. For example, make it known that trips exceeding seven days are really stressful on our family and see if there is any way they can be avoided. I wish I had learned to make requests a long time ago.
My instinct is to just state my needs or rather to whine about my unmet needs, but to ask for help was a foreign concept. “Ask and it shall be given…” And if it’s not I can choose what I want to do in the situation other than whine and moan.
Imagine that.
“Other than whine and moan…”
Hmm…I’ll have to think about that one. I’m well practiced in the W and m technique.