To come home to.

The past weeks have been particularly stressful. I tell myself it will settle down, and I know it will.

Each day working 13 to 14 hours; It can get stressful easily. I begin thinking I cannot hack it. I cannot do it any longer. I should just throw in the towel. But something keeps me going. Something gives me the strength to push through another day. I don’t know if it’s my pride, not wanting to be proven wrong, and not wanting to disappoint myself. I don’t know if it’s just my raw determination, my mind’s strength forcing itself upon my physical strength. I begin to think I’m on the verge of an answer, only to realize it’s just the glimpse of the end of the tunnel.
I love one job, hate the other. I forge through one because it’s rewarding, satisfying to look at my work. I forge through the other, because I have to. No other reason. Nothing about it is satisfying, there is no ‘work’ to look at afterward. I begin to see what kind of worker, what kind of person I am. I am beginning to get a better look at what makes me tick.

These kinds of things run through my mind all day long, that is, when I’m not too busy with other things.

By the end of my nights, I find myself physically and mentally exhausted. Most of me has been used up throughout the day, and I come home to find myself asleep within an hour or two, which is unusual for me. It usually takes me longer to quiet my restless, mile-a-minute mind.

I finally let go, at the end of an exhausting day, and let my body fall upon the couch, next to his. He’s usually already asleep, but it matters not to me. Just his breath, his presence, sometimes even his voice and touch, is all I need to calm me down.

And in those moments, when I’m refilling on my need for him again, I realize that there’s nothing else I need. There’s no one else I’d rather come home to.

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I was a little worried to begin the night. Boyfriend didn’t like the idea of me going out with only another guy. And I didn’t blame him. I was just trying to keep a promise to a friend. A friend. That’s all he is to me, and I know that’s not what he’s concerned about. He just doesn’t like that I’d be out, drunk, with another guy. I completely agreed and sympathized. I hate being out without him. But a promise is a promise.

The original agreement was for both of us to go. And that didn’t happen, because he had a headache and was generally feeling like crap. I didn’t want him to go. I just felt bad for promising to go, and then backing out.

At the last minute, my friend called to say that she needed to be picked up, so I was all set. I would not be out with only a guy friend, it’d be the three of us. And that seemed to calm his nerves, and mine too.

I had a great time. Good food, good drinks. Good friends. The night was filled with laughter, stories, and jokes. With flirting, oogling, and gossiping. But all the while, there was an underlying, unspoken truth. He wasn’t there. And I missed him.

Though the night was perfect in so many regards, there was one in which it wasn’t.

I went home that night, still slightly drunk, and I lied down next to his sleeping body. And as his arms naturally wrapped around me as he slept, I knew. There is no one else I’d rather come home to.

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No matter where I go, no matter what happens there, I know. We will struggle, and we will fight. We will be at each other’s throats without even wanting to. But he is it. For the rest of my life, he is it.

There is no one else I’d rather come home to.