When I was waiting for Lion at the airport last night, a 20-something guy ran into the arms of his girlfriend and for a minute it looked like they’d have sex right there in arrivals. I thought about their greeting versus the greeting Lion and I would have. Theirs was I-can’t-live-without-you love and I wondered if they’d ever make it out of bed this weekend. Then there was the couple who were waiting for their kids and his/her parents. (You can learn a lot from overheard conversations.) She was stationed by the baggage carousel and he was waiting near the escalators. She dragged four large bags off the carousel and he didn’t move a muscle to help her pull them over to the escalator.
I’d staked my claim to a spot halfway between the escalator and baggage claim. One eye out for Lion. The other out for his bag. When he texted me that he was coming in at another gate, I had to figure out which post to abandon. I was halfway to the other gate when he said the shuttle was delayed. He was walking. I circled back to baggage claim, found his bag and was just nearing his gate when I saw him. He was tired from carrying his computer bag and not being able to switch hands because of his shoulder. We got his computer bag settled on top of the suitcase and then we hugged and kissed.
In hindsight, it was sort of a mixture of the young couple and the couple waiting for their kids and parents. Not the urgency of the young couple, but more caring than the other couple. (In all fairness, I don’t know how caring the second couple really is. I can only go by what I observed.) The urgency, in my mind, was to get the bag out of Lion’s hand so he could be more comfortable. Of course we’re very happy to see each other. And yes we often think we can’t live without each other. To an outside observer, I suppose our greeting might have looked similar to the second couple. “Oh good you’re home. Let’s go. Traffic is bad.” Boring. What they didn’t hear, because we never said it, was that Lion’s arm no longer hurt because the computer bag was on the suitcase that I had already gotten from baggage claim and I was wheeling the suitcase so Lion didn’t have to. That, to me, is the middle-aged version of I-can’t-live-without-you.
Wow. That took a sugary, sappy sweet turn at the end there. I bet you never expected that!
[Lion – We’ve never been smoochy at greetings. But one look at either of our faces reveals the joy and relief at the end of a separation. The look of relief wasn’t because I didn’t have to keep carrying my bag. It was because I felt the absolute joy and relief that my life could go on again.]
Awwwwwww!