Left Behind

A rather dramatic title for this blog post, but you know it's how I feel today.

Today I dropped Daddy off at the local Train Station. He's gone to work which is normal for a Monday morning, but today instead of coming back home at the end of the day he'll be staying in a hotel. Instead of coming back home tomorrow, or the day after, or even the day after, it won't be until the day after that that he'll come home.

And I'm okay with it.

Seriously I'm okay with it. I've said so many times in the past that when we have to do something hard for the benefit of our family, that we have to do it. It means if it's living away from home for most of the week or having to give up something that we feel is important then we do it.

We do it for the good of our family.

And yet.

This morning, when I took Daddy to the train station and I saw him leave the ticket office, walking to the platform I cried. I cried because other than a few nights here and there and a trip to Chile in 2009, Daddy and I haven't been apart since we got married.

I know I'm putting a brave face on it and I've got other things to worry about, the Children for example. I've already told the children that with Daddy not here we'll be fine, that this week will be a bit of an adventure, we'll be able to do things we couldn't do when he was coming home each night. We'll be able to pop out to the local play centre without having to worry about getting back in time, we'll be able to eat together as a family each night (rather than Daddy and I eating after the Children), we'll be able to go and visit our family and countless other things.

The truth is I think that only this week will be the adventure. Yes, I'll get the bed to myself each night, the children will use Skype to talk to their Dad, I'll talk to him via email and Skype and Twitter and we'll use those to talk to each other whilst we watch TV together from our different week day homes too.

Next month will be December, and Christmas is a special time of year for us as a family, just like it is for many families. We do so many things together, that I don't think the children will realise that they are missing their Daddy before he is back on Christmas Eve.

And then it'll be a habit.

And we won't realise that this is our new normal, to us it'll just be the way we live now.