Today was most definitely a harder day for Marshall than it was for me. While I knew he would eventually return to work and I wasn't looking forward to it, Marshall had a much harder time leaving than I did watching him go. Alone with your thoughts in a car for 3 1/2 hours is a lot harder than being alone with your thoughts in the comfort of your home with your puppies and friends nearby. In a way we have been lucky to have had as much time off as we both did, especially Marshall. Not many men would be able to take 6 weeks of leave for the birth of their child much less the death of one. While most women would have 6-9 weeks off, I still feel blessed that the producers of Homeland are so understanding and did not give me an ultimatum to return to work when the show starts or not at all. The show starts filming in Charlotte, NC in 2 weeks which would mean I would have to return in a week. I simply am not ready to return to work just yet and they fortunately allowed me to have some more time off and return when I'm ready, which will be in mid June.
But with the good comes the bad and while Marshall was able to take 6 weeks off when he does return to work he must do so in Charleston, SC a good 3 1/2 hours away. While he doesn't officially start to work until tomorrow when the next episode of Army Wives begins filming, he wanted to go by the set and say hello to everyone and get the obligatory hugs out of the way. I knew the drive down would be hard for him and then later tonight when he has to return to an empty house will be difficult.
Fortunately, I was not alone for long today. Shortly after Marshall left, Stacey called to suggest we do lunch and see if Dino wanted to tag along. It ended up being a beautiful rainy day so we sat outside at Bluewater and enjoyed the overcast water and the company. Stacey and Dino ended up monopolizing my whole afternoon. From lunch we went to Starbuck's for coffee and sat so long and talked that we eventually got hungry again. So we went and picked up dinner at Big Thai 2 and went to my house so we could hang out with the dogs. It wasn't until 9pm when they left and I enjoyed every moment of it. It is so wonderful to have friends that understand that alone is probably really not what either of us need right now. Luckily, Marshall had the same thing occur. While he was forced to spend some time alone after visiting the set, when they were done filming his coworker JT met him out for dinner so Marshall wouldn't have to spend the entire afternoon and evening alone.
After Stacey and Dino left I got on the computer to do some writing and to look at the pictures again from the weekend's memorial service and I noticed what Stacey and Dino had been up to Saturday night. We had invited everyone back to our house after the memorial service for desserts and coffee. Marshall and I both ended up getting pulled away from time to time by different people and I apparently totally missed the roasting of marshmellows. We have one of those electric fireplaces that we had turned on just the light on so there was some ambient lighting in the room. Well, Dino and Stacey decided that since there was a fire and there were mini marshmellows that they should try to roast them on our fake fire and Susan documented the entire thing with my camera. It gave me a good laugh to see what they had done and it was a nice way to end the evening and occupy some of my alone time.
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