All about time

been meaning to write this for a while, but have been super busy at work, my prime writing time, and compulsively watching Sex and the City series DVD's at home

Sometimes I feel like our life is ruled by time. It's an all encompassing master. And sometimes the master orders me and A to be on different times. Which can be hard to reconcile.

We live in different time zones. 4 hours apart. When I want to call him, I have to stop and think about how early it is there (b/c hey, despite what crew scheduling thinks, no one appreciates a 4am call). When he gets in from his last flight, he has to stop and think what time it is here before he calls to tell me he's done and safe. He spends most of his time in the Pacific and Mountain time zones here, which makes it easy for him to adjust when he's flying on trips and is in a different place every night. It makes it hard though, when he comes home to the east coast. He wants me to stay up with him, but I'm tired and have to work in the morning. I want him to wake up and go to breakfast on Saturday, but it's 3 hours earlier than he is used to. It has caused a lot of arguments for us, but once I stopped taking his tiredness personally, it's getting better.

I have no idea what A does with his time. Sometimes he doesn't know either. I know what I would LIKE him to be doing with his time (mostly paying bills, looking for a new crashpad or base trade, doing his prm's and finding new routes home), but I can only make suggestions. It frustrates me when I hear that he and the CA went out and did XYZ, but that he hasn't had time to do what I asked him to take care of. From here, it SEEMS like he has plenty of time to be taking care of small thing while he's on the road. I can't say that time management has ever been his strong point though, that's always been relegated to me. But we're working on it.

A gets a lot more days off than I do. It's hard not to be jealous. When he's home from a trip, he wants to be off duty, with no responsibilities. BUT when he's home, I want help with MY responsibilities. It's a fine line to walk. Is it fair for him to not have to do anything because he's "off"? I don't ever get a chance to be off, especially not for a few days weekly. I consider his time away from us as his time off from having childcare and housekeeping responsibilities. So when he comes home, he's on again. Because that's when I MIGHT get my time off. It is frustrating to no end to have things that I need/want him to take care of on his days off and have him not do it. Some girlfriend long ago must have told him that his helplessness was cute, but it just doesn't fly with me.

Spending time apart doesn't faze us much. Today A is starting another 4 day trip. He didn't have enough time to come home after his last one (damn CAL employees hogging all the seats on their own flights!) so he's in the middle of a 11 day stretch gone. I'm looking forward to having him home again next week, but all the same, it's not that big of a deal to me. I was commended this morning (by A) for the feigned enthusiasm in my voice telling him how much I missed him. "Why of course I miss you baby, I'm counting the minutes until you are home again!". It's disappointing to have 4 days off work and not be able to spend them with him, but missing the actually holiday isn't that big of a deal.

In less than 2 weeks is our anniversary- 3 years together and 1 year married. The time is flying and I can't believe everything we've been through. It's hard to say which was harder, year #2- when we moved to FL and tackled school and instructing or year #3 when we took on getting hired, training and early life with a regional. Both have had their challenges but also their sweet moments as well. Hopefully the next year will being many more good times.