I’m off to Boston in a few hours. Not looking forward to 22+ hours in a plane plus stopovers and travel to and from the airports… Not fun. Cattle class. Not fun.
I am excited to be starting a new job. Looking forward to the people and the challenges. Time to stretch the brain and do something new and exciting.
But… As I put my daughter to bed tonight it really hit me that I won’t see her for 3 weeks. I think it will be hard on us both, and on my wife. I have cultivated a singularly bad habit in my girl: She falls asleep in daddy’s lap every night. I will miss this. It’s one of the best things in life. Even when I struggle with her, trying to get her to sit still and settle down so she can go to sleep. Even then it’s the highlight of the day. The interactions as she settles down — smiles, laughs, when she points something out to me. The warmth and love when she does finally curl up and drift off to sleep. How beautiful she is when she falls asleep. Even how cute she is when she snores.
It’s going to be a long three weeks. I think I will miss this bedtime ritual more than I’ve missed anything else in my life on the many times I’ve flown off. It’s different from the feeling of missing your significant other. I don’t know how to describe it, it’s just different, a different part of you that aches.