Ryan in the wilderness—day 1

Ryan left for the wilderness this afternoon. This is my account of my adventures without him.

5:00 – Ryan came home from work and we spent the next little bit getting everything ready to send him off. Everything was extra tender. It’s funny, but the things I’ll miss the very most are my daily luxuries—feeling his hand sliding into mine and getting to breathe him in when he hugs me. I got teary when we talked about saying goodbye. I know he’s not dying, but this will be the longest I’ve gone without talking to him in over two years.

5:40 – Took Ryan to Herget’s house to meet up with the backpacking crew. It was nice to be able to see him off and hear a little about their non-existant plans. (Since Four Lakes Basin was covered in three feet of snow, the boys had to make some last-minute adjustments to their plans. And by “adjustments” I mean “make new plans entirely.”) The boys all seemed to have some pretty good gear, plus, Brent had his gun and Herget had his scary-ass knife so I felt a little less worried about Ryan getting eaten by a bear. And Brent promised not to shoot Ryan, so my husband is as safe as I can make him. I loaded him up and kissed him goodbye. I did not cry one tear. Because I am amazingly tough.

6:00 – Came home and wandered aimlessly. If I were older, doctors would have assumed I belonged in an Alzheimer’s ward.

6:30 – Megan came over (yay), so I had to stop wandering. Probably that was a good thing.

11:00 – Megan went home. That’s right, I played until 11 o’clock on a work night. I’m that cool. We made dinner, chatted, and pretended to edit, but really we just feasted on brownies and Mr. Darcy. Fantastic evening.

11:05 – Returned to wandering aimlessly. Puttered. Also, I saw a huge creepy bug, but no one was around to kill it and I didn’t dare get close to it. This is going to be a major problem, especially when it creates an army of creepy baby bugs and they mount a full-scale attack on me in my sleep.

12:00 – Turned down the bed and found a little note Ryan had written me on a half-sheet of notebook paper. Remembered how much I miss him. Tried to console myself by taking up the entire bed. Mmm, leg room and a million pillows.

1:00 - Since there was no one to put my cold feet on, I couldn’t fall asleep. Because everyone knows it’s impossible to fall asleep with cold feet. Used the laptop to warm up the bed next to me. Will now proceed to cuddle up to the warmth. I’m so tricky!

Update: As soon as I turned off the light to go to sleep, I WAS ATTACKED BY THE HUGE CREEPY BUG. It flew and hit me in the head and then went straight for my ear. I reacted as any sane person would do—throwing pillows and doing enough flailing to knock the laptop off of the bed. The laptop lived. The bug was not so lucky. I am happy to report my pillow throwing abilities annihilated the offending bug. Of course, the ensuing adrenaline rush made it basically impossible for me to get to sleep until 2:00 am. But I still beat the bug.