A Summer of Long Good-Byes

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Gretch and I started dating on August 16, 2007. (This is what we refer to as our first anniversary. Our second anniversary is our wedding, June 20, 2008.) From the day we went on our first date until about November 18 or 19, we saw each other every single day. It was either that Sunday or Monday that I left Champaign to go home for Thanksgiving Break and get a bunch of assignments completed. Upon returning to Champaign on Thanksgiving Day, we continued to see each other every single day. We maintained this daily contact until we got married and then onward for a few years. I think the first time we were apart for any period of time more than a day was when I went to the Illinois Teen Institute one year without Gretch. Or it may have been when she went to Chicago with her best friend for a weekend.

Over the past six years, we have rarely been apart for more than a week, and then only once a year. But this year has been different. First, Gretch went to Utah with her mother to visit her sister and her baby niece for three weeks. That was in March. Then I taught a two-week summer camp in June, although I was still home in the evenings. Then I had a week-long professional development seminar, but, again, I was home in the evenings. I finally had three weeks off after the Chancellor's Academy, but then I was gone for another week to participate in the Lake Guardian Shipboard and Shoreline Summer Workshop with the New York Sea Grant. (If you missed out on these adventures, check out the official CGLL blog!) I got back from that on Sunday evening and the following Friday, I left for another week.

So it has been a summer of long good-byes. It has been tough, but I know others who have it much tougher. To all of you who are in the military, have family in the military, and especially those who have a spouse in the military, I don't think I'll be able to fully empathise with the heartache of being apart for three to six months at a time, but I can at least somewhat know what it is like. If it were not for text messages, cell phones, and Skype, it would have been even more difficult to get through all of these absences. But Gretch and I have also been very blessed with friends and family members who have offered support, meals, and companionship during all of this.

Fortunately, I am back now and plan on being around for a long while. Of course, we are moving in less than a week and then school starts two weeks after that, but at least we will both be home!

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