My Blue-and-White Pajamas

Dear John,

 

It's 11 pm, and the house is quiet. Jen and Elyssa are gone until Sunday afternoon. All I hear is the clock ticking, some cars on Lake Street, and Jethro breathing quietly while he sleeps beside me. It seems strange to be here by myself. I know it's good for me - I enjoy part of it and hate part of it. I'm probably being normal again.

 

The temperature is going down to 42 tonight. The house is still open, and I'm wearing my blue-and-white pajamas. Remember when we bought them that week we were in Green Bay? I saw them and loved them. And they came in handy when I came down with H1N1 flu while we were there. But we'd already found that wonderful little pizza place that delivered to the hotel, and it was the weekend so there was plenty of football to watch. These pajamas were perfect, and I lived in them for a couple of days.

 

We made that trip to see Door County, and found that it was closed for the winter. But we enjoyed Green Bay so much that the trip was well worth it. And I remember that little shop we found on the way home - a combination cheese-and-antiques shop. We got some wonderful cheese there, and I found the jadite salt-&-pepper shakers that are in the kitchen. And wasn't that the trip where we ate at Stir Crazy in Chicago?

 

The whole trip was made on the fly - Matt had scheduled you off for some training that got cancelled, so you took the days as vacation time and off we went. We seemed to do that sort of thing. When we lived in South Bend you had two days off for meetings that were cancelled, so we took off to Saint Louis to see the Cubs play the Cardinals.

 

At the bottom of it all was the fact that we just enjoyed being together - what we were doing was not all that important. And we could find interesting things about anywhere - odd little shops, small local restaurants, Stonehenge re-created in old cars - things that were interesting. But it was really about just being together. I think that's why I can't even think about traveling right now. The point of traveling was spending time with you, so now it has no point. It would just make me miss you even more.

 

I'd better go to sleep before I turn into a pumpkin. Jethro is already down for the night, and the cars have stopped going by. I love you, I miss you, so much.

Joan.