International Departures and the Arrival of Empty

I know I’m being selfish but I think if ever there was an okay time to be it is just now at this very moment.

I’m feeling blue.  Kind of empty.  Like I want to go back in time to some point before we decided this would be a good idea.   I’m not making dinner tonight.  It’s going to have to be cereal ’cause I’m just not up to it.

It’s a surreal feeling to watch your son walk away from you in a crowded airport, backpack on his back and suitcase being wheeled behind him.  It doesn’t feel quite right for him to walk away at all because we’re a together family.  We do things together!  Not apart.  So the very act of him heading in a different direction than us feels foreign but when his direction is in that of a sign stating “International Departures” well, that my friends is a whole new ball game.

He waved over and over again from under that sign.  Not moving forward just yet but too far away to hug one last time.  The tears burned hot on my cheeks after he walked away.  I turned around to wipe them so he wouldn’t see, but I know he knows.  He just kept waving.  Looking back and waving.

I watched until I saw the back of his hat clear customs and that was it.  He was gone.

The next 17 hours hold some strangeness.  No way to get a hold of him.  No way of knowing he’s safe with his cousins.  He’s just out there in the big wide world.  Crossing oceans and stuff.

Home isn’t quite right just now either.  It’s just a bit too empty and I wish I could portray my feelings like the dog does, lying by the front door waiting.  Head down in his paws just staring and knowing that one more person should be coming through any second.  Little does he know he could be lying there for the next 31 days.

It’s harder than I thought it might be, this having him go.  I knew I’d cry but I didn’t know the hollow I’d feel.  The incomplete of seeing his perfectly made bed that I know will look just that way for too many days.

Now excuse me,  I have to go watch his flight as it makes it’s way across the map in a perfect arc.  He’s flying over Yellowknife just now and I don’t want to miss when he crosses over the bottom of Greenland.  My next few hours?  Me refreshing the screen every minute.  Judge away, those of you who have your children within arms reach, judge away!