I’m waiting for my Boy to come back home. He’s been gone now for what seems like half a year, although I know that it hasn’t been nearly that long. Our life here without him has settled into a normal routine- well, what passes for normal these days. It’s hard sometimes to keep the Boy-shaped place open and waiting for him. It’s going to be hard to let him be the Daddy again when he’s home… I’m not sure what that involves, other than bedtime stories and ice cream sundaes.

I feel as though I’m one of the shipwives back from the eighteen century. Standing on the shores looking out to sea trying to see through the waves for the first sign that the ship is coming home again. I could go on for pages and pages about love and loss and loneliness. I could go through a box of tissues one night, wondering how we’d keep going if he never came home again. Let’s not go there today.

I’ve got to live like he’s just stepped out to the corner store for a beer. He’ll be home again any minute. Someday I’m going to come home to see him sitting in his chair on the porch. Every day I get up and put in my contacts and paint my eyes. Make myself look pretty. I do not feel pretty most of the time. I don’t feel pretty, when I’ve got stained shirts and a toddler pulling on my legs. I don’t feel pretty when I’m covered with sweat at the end of the day, with baby asleep in her crib and I’m looking around at the remnants of Hurricane Tiffany.

Then again I'm pretty lucky. I've got a wonderful daughter and a wonderful husband and I get to stay at home with my baby girl. I don't have to juggle daycare and doctors and a 40 hour work week. That's not bad for this economy. Sometime real soon I'll see her walking towards me. Any day now I'm anticipating her first real hug for me. I tell her that she's already got me wrapped around her finger, that she doesn't have to try anymore. I want to tell her. I'm afraid that she'd stop hugging me. Silly of me, I know that. But she's my baby and I'm her mama- that's the way it's supposed to be. Her face lights up when I come in the room. That's all the love that I need.