Lesson Learned

Ah, reunions! They just never live up to the hype.

I was super excited to get off the plane and see my DH. After being separated for 4 months, I had some pretty grandiose ideas of what our reunion would be. Here is the scenario I created in my mind:

I run into my husband's arms at the airport. We hug tightly; break the embrace for a passionate kiss. People are yelling, "Get a room!" We ignore them while tears gently roll down my cheeks. We can't stop touching one another (kissing, holding hands, hugging) while we wait for my luggage to arrive. He whisks me off to a romantic dinner where we gaze into each others' eyes and tell each other how much we missed each other and how we can't live without the other one.

Eeeerrrrrrccckkkkk! (That's the sound of brakes screeching.) Wake up! Here is the reality of what happened.

It's the weekend before Christmas. I arrive at the tourist capital of the world where the airport is under construction. My husband is waiting for me at the wrong exit and can't find me because I'm already at baggage claim (where my carousel has been changed twice). When he finally finds me, he's grumpy and put-out because of the stress of just getting to the right place.

5 minutes later, our son and my best friend arrive and all chances for romance go out the window! We are whisked off to dinner but it's Chili's (which is normally is awesome but is never really romantic) where we spend the evening talking about Rei's deployment. Forget the gazing into each others' eyes. Forget the emotional sentiments being shared over a lovely dinner. We are lucky to even be sitting next to one another.

We do get some alone time that night but we are exhausted. We spend the next day with friends and family before heading to a condo that we had rented near my parents' house. The homeowners forget we are coming and we spend 45 minutes checking in before they finally release a key to us. Then we arrive at the condo, and there is no electricity. I could feel my DH, who is not a patient man to begin with, slowly begin to boil over. Luckily, my parents have a spare room available, and we stay there.

That's not the end of our condo woes. The next day we go back to the condo to check that the electricity is really on - it is - and we turn on the air conditioner because, well, this is Florida in December. It's what you do. We left to spend the day with my family, and when we return that night, we realize that the air conditioner is not working. It's 80 degrees in the condo, and there are no screens on the sliding glass doors to let in some air. At this point, my husband is not just boiling but completely over the edge. We end up mad at each other and spend the night in separate rooms (it was cooler that way anyway!).

Luckily for us, our vacation did get better. We end up cancelling our stay in the condo and just stay with my parents (p.s. I'm still waiting to calm down before I review the homeowners on VRBO). This works really well; better than I anticipated. After Christmas, we take our son and grandson to the beach for a few days and really enjoy ourselves. It was a good end to what started very shakily.

So you might be saying, "That wasn't the greatest of reunions," and you would be right. It wasn't. The best part was when we arrived home. We. just. clicked. We snuggled on the couch. We watched movies together. We worked on the Honey-Do list together. We went out to dinner. We exercised together. We cooked meals together. It was beautiful. Here was the reunion I was looking for but had tried to make happen in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I'm not sure how I would have done it differently. Maybe I couldn't have. Maybe it was meant to happen how it happened. Or maybe I shouldn't romanticize reunions...