Leaving DC

I recently traveled to Washington, DC for work. No big deal, really. I was gone, including travel time, about four days. Donna watched Rowan while I was gone. We had Rowan stay there a few times so she got used to it, and I prepared her ahead of time for my absence so she’d be expecting it (that’s key to her coping with changes in routine well).

The trip went pretty well, logistically. Rowan did well at Donna’s. Donna did great with Rowan. The travel arrangements went smoothly. The hotel was nice, and the work went well.

So why am I writing about it?

The trip home got to me. For whatever reason, the process of going through the airport to fly home triggered all these emotions from when we flew home from Florida (that DC trip was my first trip since then). That trip last December was so fricken hard. Aimee had only been gone for two days, and it just seemed insane that we were going home without her when we’d arrived expecting so much fun, and had had a blast for the first six days. Then, in stunned shock, we were walking through the airport, going through security, all the steps we’d been through in reverse just eight days before, but without our beloved Aimee. We were in so much pain that day, unbelievable pain. And going through the airport in DC triggered a lot of that for me again. It was weird, unexpected. And it was hard to shake.

Aimee's phone

Actually, there was one other part of the trip that was difficult, which I just recalled. When I would travel before, I would text Aimee as soon as the plane landed, and then call her from my hotel. I forgot about the texting, but when I got to the hotel in DC, the reflex to call Aimee was so strong I almost actually called her phone. The loneliness of NOT having someone to call, of there not being that someone who loved me so much and was dying to talk to me when I got in, that was hard. Those first few moments in that hotel, of not calling Aimee, were some of the loneliest I've felt since her death.

Incidentally, I turned around and travelled again the next week, and had no such flashbacks or recalled emotions. That's part of what makes all this crap so difficult - the unpredictability. I didn't expect the trouble I had when I went to DC, but it hit pretty hard. Then I half expected it to repeat the next trip, but it didn't. Ugh.