I'm back!

After almost a month away attempting to save the world in Bolivia (and two months away from the blog) I was a little nervous that SG#1 would forget who I was and start liking the single life again. And to tell you the truth, there was a part of me that started to slip back into my single-girl pants and have a mini-mental-freak-out about being in a serious relationship again. But, as I stepped off the plane at SeaTac International, I got a whoosh of fresh Seattle air in my face and whoosh of butterflies in my stomach signaling the gamut of my mixed emotions... and sheer excitement over seeing SG#1 again!

Luckily, he still remembered what I looked like (crazy airplane hair and all), he pulled the car up to the sidewalk where I was standing and we started loading my way-too-heavy-bags (yes, bags plural) into the car. And it got me thinking. What is it that maintains the connection between two people even when you are a part from each other?

Bolivia's spotty Internet service and almost nonexistent cell phone towers made opportunities for communication few and far between. And with the work I was doing in Bolivia, the poverty I saw, the people I cared for, it felt like I was changing as a person every minute of the day. And SG#1 also had life-changing adventures with old friends while I was away. Yet, here in the airport loading zone, it felt like we hadn't skipped a beat.

It's funny to start to spending a lot of time with one person, it makes me wonder how those couples, married for 65 years, can maintain a solid relationship and still change and mold the person they are as they live their life separately, yet together. Someday maybe those couples will publish a book with their keys to success, the holy grail of marriage. Not that I've married SG#1 in my head or anything, but a long trip away gets a girl thinking, you know?

Interestingly enough, SG#1 admitted to a similar freak-out to mine - a seemingly natural response, I think, when one finally wakes up from the proverbial honeymoon period and realizes there's another person laying next to you.