Columbus

It’s not so bad, really. He may be seven hours and two states away, but he’s in a nice apartment…well, a suitable apartment, clean, quiet, warm, with working appliances and new carpet, no complaints. But he doesn’t have a bed. Despite dogged attempts to locate and purchase a queen sized mattress/box spring so he doesn’t have to sleep on an inflatable mattress, I may be leaving tomorrow without having set up his bedroom. I have one more attempt in the morning to obtain a reasonably priced mattress.

Please don’t misunderstand; Tim is fully capable of making these purchases and setting up an apartment on his own. He is *not*, as my mother would say, a non compis mentis. But the hours he’s working are positively ridiculous–in fact, he’s been working since 10 a.m. today, his only substantial break being an hour during which he installed a new shower-head (out of preference, not necessity). It’s 9 p.m. 11 hours on a Sunday. Nice, huh?

I didn’t have a full understanding of the Spartan life he was leading until I got here Saturday. He had been sleeping on a piece of memory foam on the floor for the past week. After trying and failing to find a mattress Saturday, we purchased an inflatable mattress that worked all right for one night, but will certainly not work for the long term. But he does now have a desk for doing his work–which he spends more time on than sleeping anyway–and a rather nice office chair. I finally found some inexpensive lamps at the thrift store, after visiting four different stores. So there’s light.

I brought him our spare dining table and chairs, so now he has a place to eat.

It hurts me to think that in addition to having to be 400 miles from home, from the most comfortable bed in the world, from homemade dinners and comfy couches and his faithful dog and the people he loves, Tim has also spent the last week sleeping on the floor and eating standing up. So he works 16 hours a day, eats at his desk, then comes home and falls into a fitful sleep on the floor.

There are worse situations. I know. He has a roof over his head and a fully appointed kitchen, complete with not terribly unhealthy food. He’s all right, I have to remind myself.

But I don’t much like it.

I want to swoop in and give him the most amazing apartment ever–comfy chairs, a delightfully soft, warm bed with new bedding, homemade food in the fridge, clean laundry and kitchen, and no distractions from his work. We’ve gotten closer to that ideal this weekend, but for that darned elusive bed…

But what I REALLY want is to take him out of Columbus, bring him back home, and give him all of those things in the home we’ve made together, the place where he is surrounded by people he loves, and people who love him. I don’t want him here anymore.

I can’t. He’s got a year-long contract at work, and a year-long lease on this apartment. He’s here. For a year. Four hundred miles and seven hours and two states away.

It’s really not so bad. I just can’t remember why.