Holding Pattern

So, here I sit, eating breakfast at the exotic Holiday Inn Express in La Junta, Colorado.

Try not to be jealous.

Employees are chattering behind me near the front desk. A small group of women were talking at the table next to me a few minutes ago, apparently lamenting some common woe worthy of lengthy conversation, but they've since disappeared back into the hotel somewhere.

I don't fucking know what they were talking about. I wasn't listening.

I was fighting with the Wi-Fi.

It's not working.

I've tried reconnecting multiple times, apparently believing that if I just click the same fucking button with enough conviction, the router will eventually recognize my authority and comply. That's not how routers work. I know this. I've known this for decades. And yet here I am. Connect. Nothing. Disconnect. Connect. Nothing. Maybe this time? Nope.

Fucking technology.

There's only so much troubleshooting I can do from my tablet. If I knew where the router was physically located, I'd probably walk over and reboot the fucking thing myself. But I don't, so I won't. Instead, I'll sit here eating my breakfast and writing offline like some kind of fucking pioneer.

It's Thursday, and we're in a holding pattern for a few days.

There are things to do. Storage units to visit. Trucks to empty. Belongings to sort. A life to get back on track. But they're small tasks, things that will occupy a few hours here and there while we wait for the larger pieces to fall into place.

Because something enormous is happening underneath all of those little tasks.

Dawna is moving in with me.

And fuck, I'm excited about that.

I've wanted her beside me. I've wanted to wake up with her. I've wanted our lives to stop existing in separate states, requiring long drives and motorcycle rides and calendars and planning just so we can occupy the same fucking space.

Now that's happening.

But not the way either of us wanted it to happen.

And that's important.

Because Dawna is understandably upset. Not because she's moving in with me, but because of the abruptness of everything she's being forced to leave behind. She had a plan. She wanted time to wind down her life in Colorado naturally. Responsibly. She wanted to sort through things at her own pace, say goodbye to people she loves, and close doors deliberately instead of having them suddenly fucking slammed behind her.

She deserved that.

Instead, everything changed. Fast. And now we're standing in the aftermath trying to figure out which pieces go where.

I get it. I really fucking do.

Change is hard. Life-altering change is magnificently fucking hard. Picking up your belongings, leaving the place you've called home, moving to another state, and beginning again is enormous, even when you're moving toward something you want. Even when there's love waiting on the other side. Even when you know you're going somewhere safe.

You can be excited about where you're going and still grieve what you're leaving.

Both things can be true.

I've learned that about life. Hell, I've fucking lived it. Sometimes the right road still hurts when you start walking down it.

And Dawna is hurting. Which means I'm hurting, too.

That's one of the strange things about loving someone this deeply. Their pain doesn't remain neatly contained inside their own body. Somehow it crosses the space between you and takes up residence inside yours. I can't make this part disappear for her. I can't manufacture the closure she should have been allowed to have. I can't rewind the last week and arrange everything into a gentler sequence of events.

Goddamn, I wish I could.

What I can do is be here.

And fortunately, this is something I know how to do.

Yesterday I wrote about discovering that sometimes my attempts to help Dawna when she's overwhelmed can accomplish the remarkable feat of making absolutely fucking everything worse. Apparently, talking isn't always helping. Sometimes I need to find some shade, drink some water, and shut the fuck up.

Continuous process improvement.

But this is different.

I know how to stand beside someone while the world changes. I know how to carry weight. I know how to look at a giant fucking mess and start separating it into smaller problems that can actually be solved. We don't have to solve her entire life today. We visit the storage unit. We empty the truck. We sort the belongings. We figure out what comes next.

One fucking thing at a time.

And more importantly, we do it together.

Because we're stronger together. We think better together. We do life better together. That's why we've chosen each other. That's why we've decided to spend whatever time this universe gives us standing in each other's corner.

Not because being together somehow guarantees that life will stop throwing shit at us. Apparently the universe didn't get that fucking memo. But when the shit comes, neither one of us has to stand there alone anymore.

And I know something else: Our lives are about to get better.

I don't mean tomorrow. Tomorrow might fucking suck. Next week might have its own collection of bullshit waiting for us. There will be adjustments, frustrations, logistics, and two lives that have been operating independently suddenly learning how to occupy the same space every single day. There will probably be moments when one of us needs to remember yesterday's lesson and just drink some fucking water and shut up.

But underneath all of that, I know where we're going.

We're going home.

Together.

Maybe that's what this holding pattern really is. It's the strange little space between what was and what comes next. The emergency has passed. The rebuilding hasn't quite started. We're sitting in the middle, surrounded by hotel coffee and storage units and trucks and shitty Wi-Fi, catching our breath before we start putting a life together.

So here I sit, eating breakfast at the exotic Holiday Inn Express in La Junta, Colorado. Listening to strangers chatter. Fighting with broken Wi-Fi. Drinking my coffee. And contemplating the life we're about to build together.

One storage unit, one truckload, one fucking day at a time.