Addio

I drove most of the way back from the airport in silence Monday night before I even thought to turn on the CD player in the car. I was almost numb, and even though my mind rambled, I don’t remember much of what I was thinking. I worried about Jeremy’s flight arriving safely back in Houston, mostly – totally irrational, since I had a greater chance of crashing my car on the highway on the way home. I think it was just my mind’s way of distracting itself from that sadness of saying goodbye.

Our weekend together was wonderful. Thanksgiving involved a lot of good food and was split between friends (some old and some new) and my brother, who spent the holiday with his girlfriend and her very sweet family. Friday night, we had a romantic dinner at home, complete with candles, a fire in the fireplace, and a tasty new recipe in the oven. Saturday was the opening of Poppea – a success, I think. Sunday and Monday were spent together, roaming around Los Angeles, a short walk on the beach at night, a moment waiting for the appointed time to leave for the airport, and then capped with a sad drive to LAX.

When we are together, it is all so easy. We laugh, we fight, we make-up, we cook, we go to nice meals, we watch movies, we have mini adventures together, we play Trivial Pursuit. Time flies. When we are apart, we both complain at times of being lonely and bored. I realize I am oversimplifying this here, but the amount of time we spend apart is tough. I watch some singer-couples deal with it and manage to stay happy together, and I watch other singer-couples make the choice to part ways, because it is simply too much to bear. There seems to be no formula, although at times I wish there was one. Other days, I am grateful that we are forced to live our lives in the moment, and enjoy the process of life day by day.

I am so glad that we ended up having the weekend together – we were unsure of how much time we would have together while I was away on this gig, so I am grateful that we had as much as we did.

In the meantime, I’ve only got about two and a half weeks to go here, and all I have to do in that time is make beautiful music with great colleagues and enjoy this incredible city of angels.