What a week

The week started at home. My old home anyway. We had gone to visit since Ms had never seen the place where I grew up. Strange, I guess, but it’s that sort of logistical quirk that comes into play when you’re friends with someone for 20 years and then, in the span of two years, end up dating, married, and pregnant.

What’s even weirder is that I hadn’t been there for almost 10 years. Which means that in almost half the time I’ve known Ms, I never even visited the town I grew up in. 

While we were there, we took a side trip to visit the place where Ms and I met two decades ago.

Add to that the fact that Sunday represented one year, exactly, from the date that I moved here. This week has been the story of home. 

It was a good trip. Lots of running and jumping and playing, which Ms handled with aplomb. You’d never guess she was pregnant, other than the visual evidence. Saturday evening we had supper with my dad at exactly the sort of nice but undistinguished restaurant that older locals consider “fine” because it’s been “fine” for 30 years. It was fine (no quotes this time, because I mean the word differently). 

It was strange, really. I’d been driving Ms around, showing her landmarks, my navigation skills surprisingly (and depressingly) undiminished by their lack of use. Little changes in my hometown, even when things do. And so, driving around, looking at the same things I’d last seen in the same places, perhaps surrounded by marginally shorter trees, I was struck by how little impact the visit was having on me. It was like being in an unfamiliar city for which I had inexplicable geographic knowledge. I mentioned this in passing, but I’ve been chewing on the notion since.

Sunday we woke up to head to the airport … and immediately realized that all was not well. We both felt awful in various horrifying gastrointestinal ways. I was, I’m told, much worse than Ms. Worryingly so, apparently. I don’t remember much. Scattered flashes in various bathrooms, a bit from the car ride to the airport. We (apparently) seriously talked about whether or not to even try to make it back. We (apparently) did. I remember a rough patch trying to hold it together and put a brave face on through security—TSA agents really don’t deserve to be barfed on—and I remember secretly grabbing barf bags from the seats around me so I’d have a good supply just in case.

We made it to Atlanta, and made it (apparently) to our departure gate with plenty of time to spare. I made several trips to the bathroom, including one excruciatingly desperate one just as the plane was about to board (I received a text: “They’re starting to board. Don’t worry. Take your time,” my wife said). 

I made it to the plane. We boarded, I hoarded more barf bags, we took off, we flew. And then we landed. At home. Home. 

Things were foggy. I hadn’t been this sick in 30 years. Ms herself started to fade pretty rapidly after we left the plane. I found some reservoir of alertness and managed to drive us home. Home. 

My six-months-pregnant wife managed to get us home. 99% of the distance anyway. She’s a remarkable woman.

By Monday, I was feeling better. We both spent most of the day in bed. I was in a great deal of pain from the roller coaster I’d put my various little-used muscle groups through over the preceding 24 hours. I was light-headed and cranky from lack of food but the thought of eating was about as appealing as a knife wound to the brain. I ended up going about 42 hours before I could managed a handful of Goldfish crackers. But, slowly, I started feeling better. I gradually left behind that inward-focused place you go when you’re horribly sick and started to check in on Ms. She hadn’t had it as bad, but she wasn’t great. 

Tuesday I was basically better, though I was still hurting. The rest of the week I’ve been fine. So naturally that’s when the punch line hit: allergies took down Ms like whatever plague we’d had couldn’t. She’s been going to work and generally functional, but she’s pretty miserable, sniffling and snorfling and snotting all night long. She insists, and she’s right as far as I know, that it’s because she ditched her usual practice of loading up on local honey because she’s pregnant and local honey isn’t pasteurized. I’m cursing whatever moron decided that, when it comes to pregnancy, the cure should always be worse than the disease. 

But we’re home. Ms is sleeping and sniffling and snorfling quietly. At home.