Love Letter


I’m in DC and I get up at 7am (or 4am my time) and go in to work a full day. I go to call Ben to meet him for a cup of coffee before I have to catch my plane and my cell phone is missing. I call the hotel and they call housekeeping and no one has seen it. I’ve never lost a phone before but of course it has to happen today. I call Ben and tell him that I can’t make it because I need to track my phone down.

I never track my phone down.

I leave work and head directly to the airport for my 9pm flight. I cannot believe I’m starting a full day of traveling at 9pm (6pm my time) and I’m so tired already. I feel the edges of a migraine creep up. I get on the plane and try to read and try to sleep and try to find a position where all my limbs can remain awake. I teeter on the edge of sleep and not sleep, never quite making it to one side or the other. My headache creeps in a bit more. I arrive in Las Vegas and buy some candy because nothing else is open. I sit on the floor and eat fake Sour Patch Kids and wish I had my phone so I could call you to while away the hour. There are slot machines in the airport and people sitting vacantly in front of them, pull pull pulling the lever. No one wins.

I arrive at the Oakland airport at one-thirty am and sit on a bench to wait. I wish I could call you to find out how far away you are, but alas, I have no phone. I wait and I wait and I wait. I doze on the metal bench with my arms looped through my bags. I wake up when they start power-washing the sidewalk. At 2:10, I call you collect from the payphone and you say oh thank god you called, I am so so sorry, I went to the San Francisco airport, I am racing back, I will be there as soon as I can!

Thirty seconds after I call, they route you off the highway and force you to meander the city streets in a desperate attempt to get back on. Of course I do not know this. I head back to my cold bench and think that I am so tired I might cry. I wait and I wait and I wait. Finally you come peeling up and jump out of the car, running to me (I am easy to find, since I am the only one there).

My foggy brain tries so hard to be mad at you and I say things about being careless and double-checking, but when I look up at you, your eyes are the kindest I have ever seen. You hug me too tight and say I’m so glad you’re finally home.

All I can think is that if we are lucky it will always be this – you will find me and I will find you and it will be right again.