He Has Returned

“Daddy! When is my Daddy coming home?” Natalie kept asking.



“Soon. He’s driving nineteen hours,” I answered for what seemed like the millionth time.



Natalie was quiet for a few minutes. “When is my Daddy coming home?”



I knew she was eager to see him. After all, he had been in Korea for a year. Yes, he came home in June to move us from Wyoming to Oklahoma but then he had to go back. When he came back from Korea the second time he flew into Ohio to pick up his truck from his Mom. I don’t drive trucks, you see. I don’t feel comfortable driving such a big vehicle and plus, suppose I crashed it? Tom loves his truck. He’ll spend hours polishing it. Sometimes I think he loves his truck more than ME.



Really, it had been a long year.



I learned that Murphy’s Law does exist.



It seemed everything broke when Tom left.



The couch.



The chair.



The mower



My car.



The sink.



My sanity.





And then we had to move and I discovered I was a pack rat.



That’s a lie; I already knew I was a pack rat.



Still, it was not easy moving to a new place and having Tom leave a week later. I’m not good at talking to people. I’m shy. He’d ask if I spoke to the neighbors and I’d be like, “I said hello and that was it.” Tom can strike up a conversation with anyone. Me? Not so much. I end up saying ridiculous things. Like once I was talking to a girl and she said my perfume smelled nice. I said thanks, I got it from a magazine and she seemed taken aback. I think I scared her.



(But really, aren’t those perfume magazine samples to wear? Or are you meant to only sniff them and leave it at that?)



Anyway, Tom made it home safely and yes, he even fixed the mower that I thought was broken. (Remember I blogged about it here.) All he did was tilt it upward, pull the string thingy and it roared to life.



It must not like girls. Because I swear, I tried to get that thing working for over an hour. And then people were like, “Uh, you weren’t supposed to add the entire thing of oil,” and I was like, “Holy crap, I PUT the entire thing of oil in it,” and I was told, “You might have flooded it,” and I was like, “Is that bad? That sounds bad..”



But the mower is fine.



My sanity is getting back to normal.



And Natalie has her Daddy back.









So all is well.