As you may know, my wonderful boyfriend Rob has been in China since May 25th.

What you might not know, however, is that this is not his first month-long excursion to another country while I spend a few weeks on my own at home in Virginia. Two years ago, right after moving into our first apartment together, Rob had to go to Turkey and Greece for three weeks with his undergraduate class. He packed up his suitcase and I drove him to a friend's house in DC, where he spent the afternoon before catching a flight across the ocean.

In an attempt to keep myself busy and not so sad, I invited a friend over for dinner as soon as I could. This is  when Rob called from the airport with ten or fifteen minutes to kill before he had to get on the plane. It was the last time I was going to be able to talk to him on the phone for a month, and do you know what I did? I talked to him for a minute and then told him I had to go. I was cooking and my friend was sitting at the bar and I felt like a bad hostess, being on the phone.

As soon as we said bye and hung up, I felt terrible. I tried to text him but his phone was already off. So I sent him an email, and waited for his layover in France, which felt like forever. That's when I received a sweet reply explaining that he didn't mind, to please not worry about it, and that his flight went well. Then he walked around and got lunch in Paris, which for some reason I love to picture in my head. Just Rob, walking around France with a baguette in his hand. The usual.

Luckily, I had a real-life do-over moment a month ago when I not only drove Rob to the airport to catch his flight to Canada and then China, but actually got out of the car, waited in line for him to check his baggage, and then walked with him until the security checkpoint, where I kissed him goodbye and then proceeded to walk around the terminal, searching for a little coffee shop, all the while crying like some kind of insane person.

China is further than Turkey, and this time he's gone for two more weeks, but at least I said goodbye properly. I'm thinking that the next time he takes a month-or-more-long trip outside of the country, I'm going to have to tag along. That's going to be my new do-over.
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I was compensated for this post as a member of Clever Girls Collective. All the opinions expressed here are my own.