My Mumbling Thoughts

As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end.

What some fucking bullshit if I've ever heard it before.

Holiday is over, and Ash is gone now. In the time it took for me to take a deep breath in, exhale, walk down some stairs at Dulles Airport, and look back over my shoulder, it was done. Ash was gone, and again I was left with the same feeling just like eight months ago that this was wrong. All of this was terribly wrong and something needed to be done sooner than immediately to put everything back into place.

I took another deep breath, wiped the tears from my eyes that had began to seriously impair my vision while walking and pulled out the ear phones from my new mini iPod that had been purchased while out at Best Buy. I fumble with "Mini" for a moment and within a couple of presses with my fingers, the first track from The Zutons comes blaring into my ears.

I begin to walk in no real direction and faces blur as I walk past at what feels like lightning speed.

God I have never been so happy to just walk. Walk and walk and walk with music pounding out any thoughts that was occuring at the moment.

A couple of steps and I landed in the ladies bathroom. In the first stall I wiped my eyes and was practicing some heavy lamaze breathing. An image of my sixth grade gym teacher suddenly appeared in my mind reminding me to always breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth.

"It's normal to cry at the airport," I think to myself. "Don't worry. People understand, you're going to be fine. Now get your shit together and prepare to face your mother and sister. They've already landed. You need to be able to drive. You really don't want to deal with your mother at this time. Don't cry. There's no need to cry. We had a great time and are lucky. We are the lucky ones. Remember the good. Don't cry."

Fuck.

It was a sort of nice coincidence that Momma and Mel were landing just as I had to drop Ash off at the gates. They were coming in from their holiday and would want to yack on and on about everything they did, what they saw, took pictures of, the different people that they had encountered while away and explain in extreme detail everything that had happened and I had missed out on.

I would want to pry out my eyes with a burning stick.

Another deep breath and I was back walking in the airport a bit slower than before but still with my music. I found their baggage claim and took a seat nearby.

A flash of Ash laying downstairs while watching TV appears in my head.

"He's gone," I think. My throat tightens.

I inhale sharply and try to find something absolutely unrelated to anything to focus on.

The lady next to me was dressed up from head to toe in pink and smelled strongly of bad perfume. I wanted to gag, but she was a pretty good distraction.

Luckily I didn't have to wait too long and was able to leave with Momma and Mel talking my ear off as I predicted. I didn't hear a word of what they said, but still added in my, "oh really?" and "that's nice" comments every so often. I had forced myself into a numb state in order to survive the ride home.

When we arrived, I fell quiet. I went to the bathroom, took off all of my jewelry, and went upstairs to lay down on my bed. I felt nauseous like my insides were being yanked out of me through my toes. I couldn't understand how everything had just happened so suddenly and I wasn't prepared for any of it. Then again, how do you prepare yourself for something like this? I didn't have time to deal, to decompress, to process, or accept anything. It was like a crash course of emotions and I tucked everything away in order to not cause a major scene.

My numb state slowly began to fade away and as I sat in bed looking towards the windows it was hard to imagine that only a couple of hours ago, both of us were here.

I had a proper cry. I wallowed and felt sorry for myself. I knew it wouldn't be the last time but I felt okay for the moment and remembered him just being here. It wasn't my imagination or a dream. It really did happen.

And lord did we have a fucking kick ass time.