Labor Day Blues

It's an annual tradition for my mom's side of the family to gather for camping and water sports every Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day. Due to my former schedule, I couldn't go to most of these casual mini-reunions, but this weekend I was looking forward to getting to go swimming for the first time in years.

No dice. While my love for rain cannot be denied or retracted, I am a wimp when it comes to the cold. And the two just don't mix. Instead of swimming, the fourteen family members in attendance crammed themselves into three motor homes. Some drank vodka and read the National Enquirer. Some played Cribbage and Michigan Rummy. I worked on my book, read the first 40 pages of Stephen King's Misery, and missed Tyler.

Although I love my family and I know my family loves me, I feel somewhat disconnected to them. I think it's because I'm an only child; they like to play games together, engage in group activities, etc. I want to curl up in a corner with some solitary distraction. This time was no different from dozens of other family gatherings in that respect, but I felt if Tyler was there with me I would have been more social. That isn't to say I wasn't social. I got to gab about Tyler with one of my cousins and one of my aunts.

The cold got to be too much for me and it was getting late, so I left. Luckily, the campsite wasn't far from Tyler's work and I stopped into see him. We often "argue" about who is happier to see who, but this time it was me, no question. Something as simple as seeing him, talking to him, and being around him brightened me up. (And he has extremely high body heat which helped thaw my frozen corpse of a body.) We talked for awhile--mostly about my visit but some about an upcoming wedding we'll be going to! Then I started to feel "guilty" for dragging him away from work. (Hey, I don't want to get him in trouble!) Since we couldn't kiss goodbye, we shook hands like a pair of respectable colleagues a.k.a. dorks.

When someone can make your day better by just existing...hot damn, that is something special. And I've wanted that my whole life.