The Why Is the Loneliness of Space

“I miss the earth so much
I miss my wife –
It’s lonely out in space…”

—Elton John, Rocket Man

I asked for it. I did. I wanted it. All of it. The back-to-back travel that came with the candidate experience half-day workshops we’ve been running via the research organization I work for. Since February I’ve gone to 10 cities across the U.S. with a Toronto trip coming up to culminate delivering 13 workshops overall.

Not a Herculean effort compared to those road warriors who travel every week for business.
And no, I’m not looking for a medal or a gold star next to my name. I love doing what I do. I keep saying over and over that I don’t like being away from my girls and my wife, but I do love what I do and love to travel. (And no, I’m not going to sing you Cats in the Cradle.)

Although I think I keep saying it over and over because I’m trying to convince myself that I don’t miss my family as much as I do, which I do. Yes, I talk to them every day that I’m gone and we see each other on FaceTime. Of course it’s not the same as when I can give my girls a hug and give my lovely wife a kiss.

Now, combine that with the fact that my sister’s in the hospital four hours away from where we live and it gets even more complicated. Not just for the fact of being there for her and her grown children due to the seriousness of her illness, but for all the things that have to get done when a loved one is down. All the additional expenses that add up when you’re coming back and forth with your family or just yourself. Keeping your kids out of school if they come with you. Having to rent a frickin’ car because one of yours is in the shop. Managing your work and business trips in between. Attempting to unravel the highly complex realities of the healthcare system. Dealing with rotating nurses and doctors and technicians and social workers and endless paperwork and questions and headaches that all the hopes and prayers in the world can't make enough magic to change.

We just did this a few years ago with our own parents, and now my sister is the one in the hospital. You tell yourself that these are just the things that you have to do, and you don’t count the costs when it comes to taking care of someone you love and all the things around them that need to be taken of.

But you do count them, you have to count them, and that’s okay (so don’t look at me that way). Love is powerful, yes, and yet there are asterisks and footnotes in the paperwork. It’s just a matter of reconciling with yourself that these are the things you can and are willing to do and sustain as long as it takes.

The other morning I sat in my sister’s hospital room watching her sleep. I was the only other one in room with her besides the nurse coming and going. Her bed rolled automatically underneath her to keep her body moving and to help prevent pressure sores. It was fluid and slow, as if she were in zero gravity; I imagined she was floating in space. Why are we here? I thought.

“Why?” I said aloud. Why? It was just an allegorical question. A simple and calm inquiry. No angry fist shaking at God and the universe. No toxic well of emotion spilling forth in frustration.

Why?

Then I imagined we were both in space and all the years growing up together swirled around us and moved us along like soundless solar winds. I realized the why was pointless because it will never give me the solace I seek. The why is a vacuum that nature abhors.

The why is the loneliness of space, and it's gonna be a long, long time. And through it all I pray for my sister and miss my family.

Because Malls, Mary Janes and Making Up

The part when the Mama's right on the friggin' money. Which is usually most of the time.

"It's like 'The Family Man' when they go to store after store in the mall and Jack Campbell wants his Mary Janes, right?"

Right. That part.

That was during lunch, hours before the end of the endless errands. Already a Daddy Goat Gruff from earlier in the morning, because I let the "bother" bother me selfishly before I articulated the why of it, and the fact that the Mama had a stressful week before as well that I selfishly neglected to acknowledge at a vulnerable moment when the bother bothered -- the foresight irony of eating at the iconic Santa Cruz Crow's Nest wasn't lost on me.

Land (of emotional intelligence) ahoy!

Unlike Jack Campbell's frustration of braving the family trip to the mall, my "new suit" payoff had already been guaranteed. I had recently purchased a new one for a conference in Ireland and needed a few alterations. Picking up the altered suit was the end of the errand day.

And while it still takes me a little while to extinguish the gruffness, extinguishing she does come. Because malls. But not just that -- because malls with the Mama and the B-hive. I know, counterintuitive to the dangerous emotional riptide malls can cause, but since there's The Santa Cruz Children's Museum of Discovery, the local mall makes for an educational visit. We're members of the discovery museum and the girls (and us) love it. 

Land (of science and discovery) ahoy!

Plus, there's a tiny merry-go-round to ride elsewhere in the mall. That and at the last minute the Mama bought me my Mary Janes -- a Star Wars backpack -- knowing how Star-Wars poor I had grown up, only owning a few sets of trading cards back in the day.

Double plus -- the part about communicating and making up. Always a pleasure when you love each other and work on making the long-term pragmagical magic.

Right on, Baby. Because malls, Mary Janes and making up.

Ody and the Wreckers

Call me Ody. And I don't mean the frickin' dog from Garfield. I mean a metaphorical Odysseus caricature of sorts. Ody, the adventurous B-hive daddy who flew to London and then will fly off to Amsterdam for business and maybe a little sightseeing in both locales.

But I wondered if we'd get there. Because the Sirens called us to the cliffs on the way to London where landed in Chicago four hours into the ten-hour flight because the autopilot doesn't work. And to land at Heathrow Airport in London, where low clouds and fog abound like San Francisco from whence we came, the autopilot has to be operational.

Which begs the question: Why wasn't it checked before we left? Or was that what's really wrong?

You never know when you fly these days. But the "what's wrong part" really began prior to this trip when the "Wreckers" came a-callin'. That's similar to "Sirens" from the current book I'm reading by Kevin J. Anderson and Neil Peart called Clockwork Angels, based on Neil's concept album with Rush by the same name. Yes, I called it an album. And it's a really damn good one. (They're all really damn good, though).

Although I haven't gotten to that part of the book yet, based on what I know about them and the song of the same name in Clock Angels, the Wreckers are pirate-like sirens who crash and pillage cargo steam ships in this hybrid Steam Punk sci-fi world.

Hence, the Wreckers.

"All I know is that sometimes you have to be wary
Of a miracle too good to be true
All I know is that sometimes the truth is contrary
Of everything in life you thought you knew
All I know is that sometimes you have to be wary
Because sometimes the target is you."

Yes, the Wreckers came a-callin' last week for sure. With my back against the wall to get ready for my UK/Amsterdam trip, finish some marketing deadlines for the exciting new firm I work for (BraveNewTalent), and finish editing my career management book due out next month (which I'll make sure you'll hear about more soon for sure), my chronically ill mother, still grieving sadly for Pop (we all still are in our own ways), went in the hospital. She's been staying with my sister ever since Pop's memorial, and was supposed to come see us during the holidays, but now everything's gone to hell in a big ugly hand basket.

That's all I can really share about that situation right now, but know that there's been a lot logistically to handle the past few days, not to mention trying to help my extremely fragile mother, who I love, get back on the path of going back home to her medical and friend/church networks, which I had planned on doing weeks after I returned from this trip.

Until the metaphorical Wreckers, that is.

As I sat and waited for my flight to London, which turned out to be a four-hour delay overall, I found myself thankful I would only be away for seven days total instead of seven years that poor old Odysseus was away for in The Odyssey, to then have to return and beat off his wife's slimy suitors.

Oh, how I miss the Mama. We've been together for over 15 years now from the day we met. Nine years since the day we married, which was on the same day we met. And the lovely little B's that came years after…

The Wreckers better look out, because no matter what else happens this week, this Ody's gonna make it back intact.