For most of last year, I was on the road with my job. I figured I was away from home 40-45 weeks out of last year. I have previously surmised that I felt the traveling played a significant role in why I am no longer with my wife and daughters. It’s a somewhat ironic thing because it wasn’t that I was out messing around when I was traveling which is what breaks up a lot of marriages. In fact, it was quite the opposite. When I was away, I missed my family and thus I spent the majority of my evenings in my hotel room. Sure, I would go out to eat but I was pretty much back in the room by 8 or so. Even if I had to stay over the weekend which happened a few times, I still wasn’t out partying at some bar. I’ve never been the type to do that anyway and even more so when I was married.
Now that I am single again, I thought that traveling would be a more exciting proposition. Granted, I don’t travel near as much as I did. As I’ve said in previous posts, I changed to a job that kept me home more. This was a valiant (although futile) effort to save my marriage. My first big trip post separation was a trip to Prague in the Czech Republic (mentioned in the last post, Tales of Beards and Bracelets). This was for my company’s sales kick off and I thought “Man, this is where I am going to make my mark on being single again.” You see, at events like these, there are a lot of meetings and presentations but there are also a lot of social events. The company would tell you it’s a chance to network with your peers but most of the company’s employees will tell you it’s a great chance to get really drunk.
Seeing as how there would be several hundred employees there from all across the world and that I would be in a foreign country, I was ready to do my share of mingling and maybe even have some “fun” while I was there, if you know what I mean, wink-wink-nudge-nudge. On the plane over, I got my man-bracelet and had a few drinks to prep myself for what was sure to be a few nights of frivolity. I was excited. I was ready to do this thing known as being single. I couldn’t wait so much so that I couldn’t sleep on the plane.
This excitement and readiness for living the single life at its fullest didn’t last long. The first social event was after the first day of the meetings and there was a happy hour that went well into the night at the bar in the hotel. Plenty of women and conversation but I was somewhat off to the side. Not alone, though. I had a few of the folks I work with who I should actually refer to as my friends but I wasn’t in the middle of chatting up some woman. I felt out of place. I felt like it was wrong. I couldn’t shake the fact that I had just gotten out of the most important relationship I ever had in my life and trying to dive into the single life at that point was like diving into a pool that had no water.
Still, I tried to be as sociable as I could but the flirty single man wasn’t coming out. At one point, I was showing the man-bracelet that I got on the plane and said it was something to replace my wedding ring. One woman who was in our group laughed and said, “Oh I know your type.” I looked at her quizzically and asked, “What is my type?” She proceeded to describe me as the man who cheated on his wife and now left her and his children behind in order to pursue a mid-life crisis as a single man on the prowl.
The words stung even though they were very, very far from the truth. Whatever winds I had flowing through my sails were suddenly stopped. I politely (okay maybe not so politely, I had a few drinks in me after all) advised her that she was wrong and that my wife lost interest in the marriage and I wanted to work things out. I never cheated on her and I couldn’t wait to see my daughters again. She quickly shut up.
The rest of the trip was fun but there was one evening where the guys I was with were busily trying to find something to buy their wives and stopped at several stores to haggle for the best deal. Another moment where my ship stopped dead in the water. I didn’t have anyone to buy something for. Oh sure, I did get my daughters some souvenirs but it would have been nice to have someone special for which to buy something special. I would have been right there with my friends in the haggling arena if that were true. Instead, I stood outside the door and watched people walk by letting that all too familiar buzzing of “whys” and “what happened” dart around my head. I tried to hide my depression from the guys but I’m not sure I did a great job at it although I hope it wasn’t too obvious. I didn’t and don’t want to be a downer around everyone just because life shit on me a little bit...okay so maybe this blog goes against that thought but I’m not forcing you to read this! :)
Another aspect of traveling relates to those little moments I talked about in The Little Things. Whenever I used to sit at the airport waiting to board the plane or as soon as I got off the plane, I would call the MMC (see sidebar) just to talk for a bit or let her know I arrived if that was the case and ask how things were going. I would talk to the girls as well but a highlight was just talking to her. Like I said, I missed my wife and family when I traveled so making even short phone calls helped to ease that bit of loneliness. Now, I don’t have that option and when it occurred to me the first time I stepped off a plane, it felt odd…weird…different.
One more story of travel and being single and then I’ll let you go. When I was returning from going to Seattle for my niece’s wedding (see An Open Letter To My Niece), the girls and I got upgraded to first class on the flight back. They sat together in the first row and I was behind them in the aisle seat, ready to spring up if they started acting up. A woman sat next to me in the window seat. The girls were absolutely perfect the entire flight and it certainly helped that it was a red-eye because they slept the majority of the time. Those first class seats were practically beds for them. When we landed, I was getting the girls up and their things together when a woman who was seated across the aisle remarked to the woman who was sitting next to me that she has never seen such well-behaved children on a plane before. My “seat mate” said that she could take no credit for the girl’s behavior which I thought was a great response. The other woman said “But you’re with the man who has the good little girls so you should be proud of that.” We looked at each other, smiled, and let it go. No sense in trying to explain, although it did kind of bother me that this woman across the aisle made no attempt to give the compliment to me, the father. Like fathers have nothing to do with the behavior of their children! Oh well. Maybe I should have gotten the phone number of the woman who sat next to me but this was before the Prague trip and if I wasn’t ready for single life then, I certainly wasn’t ready for it at that time.
I said I was going to let you go after that story, didn’t I? Well, one more thing. I’ve noticed an evolution with these posts as I have been writing them and I wondered if it was noticeable to anyone else but me. I started out with the hurt and pain of losing the woman I loved. I spent a few posts noting (hopefully humorously) about some facets of being single again (specifically in Bed, Bath and Bothered) and how I will be a single father (as in Parents, Inc.) but I spend most of my time on the divorce and the emotions around that. Still, I do see that the posts are becoming less about her and more about not having someone, which I believe is signficant in that I am probably getting over her but not the situation. I think loneliness is part of the “suddenly single” package, isn't it? While it doesn’t have to be a sad thing, it is a major part of getting through all of this. The end of this may be when I meet someone but I think the end will be when I am WITH someone.
Okay, you can go now. Thanks for listening.
Next time: The lessons of life
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