Be careful what you set your heart upon – for it will surely be yours.

I think it’s been 15 months now since I’ve traveled for work? For my last trip I was actually scheduled to be in South Africa in the very beginning of April in 2020, but had to return the airline tickets and cancel the hotel reservations altogether because, at least temporarily, there was not going to be any travel outside of this state, much less to another continent. Since then I have had the opportunity to just be here with them, almost continuously. Who knows when I’ll have to travel again for work, but I’m sure it will be too soon when it happens.

At least for now, the tired phone calls, to catch up after twenty hours of airports and flights, are gone. No more saying “hi” from a hotel at 3am when it is early afternoon at home. No more giant gaps of memory that were really just my absence from them. No reason to sleep during every day of a three day layover with them before packing up to leave again for another week or two. And no brief happiness for landing and going home for a few weeks, only to visit her in the airport for the thirty minutes before she boards my arrival plane, leaving as a flight to Houston.

COVID life is a blessing. For what it’s worth, I don’t want anyone to get sick for any reason, masks are dumb, and I really don’t enjoy getting shots in the arm — but if those are the trade-offs for staying with them and not having to travel all the time, I’ll take it. Social and travel restrictions mean nothing to me as long as I can apply my attention to the people who mean the most.