Canadutch » Randoms

Learning to Dance in the Rain…

Breigh — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 10:13:49 +0000

So tomorrow is my big day, and I can’t believe how quickly the time has passed! It feels like just yesterday that I was in the process of making the decision to have weight loss surgery, and now here I am. Tonight Xander and I leave for Brugge, Belgium and tomorrow morning at 10:30am I check into the hospital to await my operation later in the afternoon.

We just spent the past week and a half in the south of France visiting my in-laws, where we were pretty busy most of the time. They needed some trees cut down on their property and we were put to work. It was wonderful! We spent a fair bit of time outdoors, we were active and busy and spent a lot of time hanging out and chatting with the family. We didn’t really have a lot of time to think about what was coming up. It was the perfect distraction.

Now that has all changed. I am back in the Netherlands, finishing up a few last minute things before we leave, and the nerves have crept up on me. Over the course of this morning I’ve felt my heart starting to beat in my throat, my stomach is doing flip flops and I feel dizzy from all of the thoughts that are fighting for attention in my head at the moment.

I’m nervous, and even though I’ve done my best to be prepared, it just never feels like enough. I’m afraid. I’m so incredibly afraid I can hardly think. I’m afraid of the pain I’m going to feel when I wake up from surgery, I’m afraid of the pain I’m going to feel mentally when the thing I’ve been trying to prepare myself for for months finally becomes a reality. I’m afraid of the changes I’ll need to make, of the learning curve that comes along with a surgery like this and of those moments that I know are inevitable where I will eat something that seems harmless and then suffer for it.

I’m afraid that I will be the one freak of nature who has surgery like this and then somehow just doesn’t lose weight. That the wall that I’ve built up in my mind is real. The one that tells me that I’ll never know what it’s like to weigh less than 200 lbs, that even with the surgery, I’ll never know what it feels like to be NORMAL.

There are so many things I’m afraid of at the moment, I couldn’t even list them all. It’s a giant tangle up there, in my brain, and I know it’s normal and I just have to work through it, but that doesn’t make it any less stressful.

One thing I’ve vowed to do is to try to stay positive through all of this. I believe that if I can just stay positive, remember all the reasons I’m doing this and try to look forward to the positive changes, that I will recover more quickly and feel more peace during this process. Of course, this goes totally against my nature as I’m a worrier and a glass is half empty type, but Rome wasn’t built in a day, right?

So this saying is going to be my mantra for the next while.

Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s learning to dance in the rain.

What does that mean for me? Well… it means that I can’t just sit here and be nervous and let it take over me, I need to remind myself of why I’m doing this, all the benefits I hope to get out of it and what a positive change this is going to be in my life.

I can’t just lay in the hospital and wait for the pain to pass, I need to remind myself that the pain is just temporary, that in the grand scheme of things it will be nothing but a tiny blip in this entire journey.

I need to remember that there will be a day when this weight is gone… there may also be a day when I finally have a baby in my arms and if not, that I will maybe finally come out from under this cloud that being overweight has kept hanging over me.

A day or two of pain is worth it, right? A small price to pay to get a second chance. It’s a price I’m certainly willing to pay if it means getting a new start in a healthier and more energetic body. A body that may be able to get pregnant, carry a child and give me the chance to be a mother. If not a mother than someone who is active and ready to get out there and LIVE life rather than watching it pass me by.

So that’s why I’m here, my first step in killing these nerves with kindness, if you will. Instead of thinking about all of the things I’m afraid of, I want to think about what I’m looking forward to. The positive changes I’m hoping this surgery will help me achieve.

First and foremost, it will come as no surprise… the hope of finally having a child. Not only having one, but being fit enough to have a healthy pregnancy and to be able to give a child the happy and active childhood they deserve.
If I’m lucky enough to get pregnant, to have the pregnant body I’ve always dreamed of having. The majority of the time I’ve been trying to get pregnant I’ve weight between 250-300 lbs. I’d be lying if I said a part of me didn’t feel a little sad about the thought of missing out on that true baby bump. I knew that if I had gotten pregnant it probably wouldn’t have even been noticeable until I was really far along. I’d spend the majority of the pregnancy just looking fatter. Yeah ok, this one is a little vain but these are my dreams. I just love the idea of being pregnant and LOOKING pregnant. I want to wear maternity clothes, fit into pregnancy t-shirts with stupid sayings like “baby on board”. I’ve waited so long for this, if it happens I can’t help but dream of it being… perfect.
Being thin and fit enough to wear a baby. As a bigger woman, when I see others walking around with babies on their chests in carriers, all I think is how sore my back would get and how incredibly hot it would be. Maybe those things happen for thinner women too, but I’m betting it’s less severe. I want to wear my baby around, I want to be able to shop while feeling them sleeping against me. I want to be thin enough to actually fit into one of those carriers without the baby being squished to death.
I want a lot of non-baby things too… I want to go to any café and plunk myself down on the terrace without worrying if my ass will fit in their little plastic or metal chairs.
To have pants last more than a few months because my thighs aren’t constantly rubbing together and threatening to catch fire.
To not avoid going out and doing things in the summer because I’m ashamed of how hot, red and sweaty I get while trying to lug my body around in the heat.
To wear cute summer clothes that I feel make me feel nice and look nice, rather than just WHAT FITS and doesn’t show off too much of my flab.
Maybe finally feeling comfortable in shorts after many years of either wearing nothing but long pants, or suffering the embarrassment of everyone seeing my legs. To wear them and not think anything of it… and be comfortable.
To try activities I haven’t done in such a long time because I either felt too big or the equipment needed wouldn’t fit. I’d love to go skiing again, when my legs might possibly fit in boots without losing feeling in my toes. I want to ice skate again without that constant fear of “the bigger they are the harder they fall”. I SO want to go horseback riding again, which was always my biggest passion, but have always been afraid to ask my horseback riding friends back home to take me riding because I felt too fat even for a horse to carry.
I want to try NEW activities that I’ve avoided doing because they were too difficult for me, like roller blading or windsurfing!
I want to wear a swimsuit on the beach and walk from my towel to the shore without worrying who is looking at my massive thighs or other wobbly bits.
To walk by a group of teenagers and have their chuckles, snickers and laugh not even register with me because it no longer even crosses my mind that they may be laughing at me.
To wear regular sized clothes and have a whole new world of clothing opened up to me, rather than sticking to the same one or two plus sized clothing stores where I just buy what fits, rather than what I really like… and not paying a fortune for it.
I want to see what I really look like under here. I’ve spent almost 37 years never knowing what I look like at a ‘normal’ weight. I know what I look like overweight, I know what I look like obese, and I know what I look like super obese… but I have no idea what I was meant to look like. What I look like as just a regular person at a healthy weight. Will I look younger? Will I look older? Will I be pretty? I want to know.
I want to get on the scale, and see a weight below 200 lbs, what a moment that will be for me!
To feel my husband not just get his arms around me, but completely wrap me in them, without both of us trying to work around my belly.
To sleep well, without the constant tossing and turning to try to get comfortable, and morning backaches.
To travel by plane or by train and be able to sit comfortably (even with the tray down) rather than just kind of fitting, or not fitting at all!
I want to be able to cross my legs like other women. Just cross them and have my leg dangle comfortably there without having to stick my toe behind something to keep it crossed.
To not always be one of the biggest people in the room, if not the biggest overall.
Most of all, I just want to be the me I’ve always imagined and hoped I’d be. Better, happier and healthier.

There are probably an awful lot of other things but these are the first ones that come to mind. Of course, the surgery isn’t going to many any of this happen like magic, a lot of it will take hard work on my part… but they are all possibilities. I need to remember that and try to see the surgery as a door opening up to a whole new world. That is how I will find success here, by not beating myself up about what I consider to be failures in the past and working towards the future. A POSITIVE future.

This will probably be my last post before I leave, so wish me luck! I’ll be back with an update when I’m home again, hopefully on Saturday or Sunday!

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

Breigh — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 06:13:46 +0000

Ok, maybe just lions…

Last month Xander and I got up early and headed off to Arnhem to meet up with some friends at Burgers’ Zoo. I have wanted to visit for quite some time now as I’ve heard really great things about it, and it gave me a great chance to meet up with Sonya and Candace again. We all enjoy photography so it was a lot of fun exploring the zoo with them.

I took a load of photos so I’m going to post them in stages, because I have no control when it comes to trying to cherry pick my photos. So, this post will be about the LIONS, which are always a favorite for me.

The lion enclosure in Burgers’ is miles better than the one at Blijdorp Zoo in Rotterdam, which is pitiful. Actually, calling it pitiful would actually be giving it too much credit. It’s way too small, there is no space for them to move around, they always look agitated. I hate it.

The only thing that did bother me was not having any open air areas to take photos of them, there was a room where you could stand and take photos of the lions through glass… which was a struggle because the glass was covered in dirty little child nose and fingerprints.

Overall the zoo was alright but it wasn’t as fantastic as some people made it out to be. I think because we got there a little earlier in the season, a lot of the animals were still indoors. It was a fairly big zoo but I think I still prefer Blijdorp. If they improved their lion and tiger enclosures at Blijdorp it would go a long way to improving their rankings among the zoos in the Netherlands I think.

I will be back with more photos soon, including some rather disgusting photos I took at one of the monkey exhibits. Ok not rather disgusting, completely disgusting… I haven’t even gotten around to editing the photos yet because even I don’t want to look at them. Which means I must share them with all of you! You can thank me later!

So, About That Spring Thing…

Breigh — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 16:47:27 +0000

Wasn’t it just yesterday that I took photos of a beautiful sunset seen from our back balcony? How did we go from that, with all it’s springy hopefulness, to this?

Yeah, that’s snow.

In Rotterdam…

It’s almost March, for pity sake!

Not that it stops the neighbourhood children from playing outside. Oh, to be a kid again when nothing gets between you and the outdoors!

I’ll stay inside where it’s warm and cozy, thanks!

Yup, definitely snow…

Nothing came of it though, as I write this the snow has stopped and you’d never even know it was here.

This made me sad. I remember when the most beautiful red flowers grew in this basket. I also remember yesterday when it was sunny and bright. This? It doesn’t say spring to me at all!

I’m over snow. I know I’ll probably get excited next winter but for this year, my infatuation with the white stuff is over.

I want flowers, sunshine and leaves on the trees… NOW, dammit!

30 Days of Truth: Day 30

Breigh — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 23:19:10 +0000

Oh come on, seriously? Ok…

Dear Tammy,

I love that you stuck through this 30 Days of Truth thing even though you wanted to give it up about ten times. You saw it through to the end.

I love that even though you are dead tired, you took the time to finish this thing off once and for all.

You rock.

No really… you do.

Now please don’t ever do it again!

xoxo

Tammy

P.s. I also love that you ate a few of those mini chocolate muffin thingies tonight. I liked those.

P.s. again. Way to go on not cleaning obsessively and worrying tons when your company came over tonight. It made my day a lot more enjoyable.

P.s. once more. Go to bed.

30 Days of Truth: Day 29

Breigh — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 21:07:26 +0000

ha! Where do I start? Do I have to just pick one thing?

I’d like to change my weight… I’ve not lost a thing in the last three months, but with the fertility treatments and all the hormones that are being pumped into me, it’s taking everything I have just to maintain the weight I had gotten to. At some point, either when the fertility treatments end or after I have a child (cross fingers) I’d like to continue with my weight loss journey and reach my final goals.

I want to see what I look like at a truly normal weight… what I look like under all of this.

I’ll get there but at the moment there are other things that are more important. I’m not gaining at the moment and I think that’s pretty good considering that I’m a major stress eater and I’m majorly stressed!

No gains is a win right now. I will continue to lose when this is all over, one way or another.

30 Days of Truth: Day 28

Breigh — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 21:20:49 +0000

If I got someone pregnant, I would be rich. The first female to ever get someone else pregnant… can you imagine what Oprah would pay for that story?

If I were pregnant, I would be over the moon. More than over the moon, I’d be in shock. So much so that I probably would have a hard time believing it was true.

When I started this 30 Days of Truth, this question stood out to me. I’ve spent the last 28 days trying to figure out how I would answer. Would I brush over it and try to be funny or would I be honest? Brushing over it would be pretty easy, the funny thing isn’t that difficult.

Being honest? That’s another story… because it means getting really personal.

I know, you are thinking that getting personal really isn’t an issue for me seeing as I always just sort of lay it all out there, but there are some things I haven’t been talking about. This is one of them, the baby issue.

Ok, I admit it… it’s been killing me not to write about it because I’m quite an open book and my blog is like a friend to me. A friend I can talk to who never answers, just listens. It has no emotional investment or need to try to say something to make things better. It’s just there.

The problem is, I know that standing behind this ‘friend’ are hundreds of other people. Some friends, some not, some that I’m not entirely comfortable with sharing something this personal with. So I’ve held back.

I need that outlet though, I really do… and that’s why I’ve decided to go with honesty on this one. Also because I think it’s sort of fate that THIS question came on THIS day.

Today I had an IUI (Intra-Uterine Insemination)… what you’d probably know better as Artificial Insemination. This is the fourth that I’ve had, the first three not being successful. This has been a long day for me and having this question come at the end sort of makes me … roll my eyes and sigh.

My husband and I have been married for almost 11 years, together for 12. We have never tried to prevent pregnancy, and long time readers may remember a period of 3-4 years a while back where we were trying to conceive. I was more open about it back then as I was younger and wasn’t really aware of what was in store for me when it didn’t work. I had every test imaginable, my husband was tested, we tried everything we were told to do from charting to temperatures, ovulation tests… the whole works. Nothing happened.

After four years, I was completely defeated and broken down mentally. This didn’t improve when my doctors told me I would probably never have a child naturally and before they would agree to help me with any procedures, I would have to lose a significant amount of weight as the risk factors with all the hormones were too great.

I was very sad and wasn’t at all up to the task. My husband and I decided it was time to step away from the baby issue to give me a chance to get my head back together. That we needed some time just for US, as having spent so long with our lives revolving around trying to have a child took it’s toll on us as a couple as well.

The last three or four years I’ve basically spent trying to convince myself that I didn’t want children anyway. What other choice do you have when something seems so far out of reach? When I’d see someone with a screaming child I’d tell myself Wow, glad I dodged that bullet!! and I reminded myself again and again how happy I was to still have my freedom. It was what I had to do to make myself ok with it, and I almost had myself convinced.

Unless you’ve ever lived inside the brain of a woman who suffers from infertility, there is no way to understand what we need to do to get by… there’s no real point in trying.

Anyhow, fast forward to last summer, I’m sitting in my doctor’s office on a totally unrelated matter. I had lost 50lbs and he was congratulating me… then the conversation turned.

It’s been a while since we discussed the baby issue, where do you stand with that?

Well, we’ve just sort of been leaving it alone for now…

Ok, if you don’t want children that’s fine, but if you do TICKTOCK GET YOUR ASS IN GEAR!

He may not have actually said tick tock, but he did make comments about how I was 35 now and if I ever did want to get the help I needed to have children, I had to get the rest of the required weight off and get back to my fertility specialist and sort it out.

Hello, hard cold slap of reality. Nice to see you again.

Xander and I went home that day and we talked.

We continued to talk the next day.

We talked for a lot of days, figuring out what we really wanted, how we felt about GOING THERE again… to that place that had nearly broken me before. Trying to get pregnant. Did we really want all that stress in our lives again? Could I handle the disappointment? Do we really want a child?!

Here’s what I knew… I couldn’t NOT try. I knew that the thing that had been holding me back was fear. The fear of it not working and spending the rest of my life without a child. The fear of what that would do to me mentally and how it would affect our marriage.

You know what scared me more than that? How I’d feel if I one day found myself 45 years old, with my childbearing years gone past and wondering what if…

Xander agreed, and that is when we decided to go ahead with it.

So, I continued to bust my ass to lose the rest of the required weight. and in August I saw my fertility specialist again for the first time in almost four years. We made a plan. I would continue to lose weight and try to get to the goal they had set for me, and I would come see her again in three months to catch up, then maybe after that appointment they’d consider starting fertility procedures around six month after.

Three months went by, and in late November I went to see her for the checkup. I was much closer to my goal weight and much to my surprise I didn’t have to wait another six months as she had originally thought. She told me that she had made an agreement with the rest of the team of doctors that because I’d lost so much weight (85 lbs) and was so close to the goal, they would begin with IUI the following month. If that didn’t work after 6 cycles, they would move on to IVF.

I broke down in tears in her office.

I cried while making the next appointment with the receptionist.

I cried the whole way home.

I was so proud of myself for losing the weight, making the effort and finally getting the help I need.

Oh, and I was scared shitless.

My first IUI was a week to the day after my gallbladder surgery. It was incredibly stressful having the surgery, trying to recover from that, organize Christmas, get presents sorted and ready to be shipped out, stick to my diet and have all that came with the fertility treatments on top of it. December was a write-off for me and I’m still not sure how I made it through.

January and most of February have revolved around these treatments. Doctors visits, multiple hospital visits each month for ultrasounds and injections and even having to start giving myself daily injections this month. It’s been a major roller coaster ride for me emotionally, mostly due to the hormones but also the stress, anxiety, frustration, disappointment and a multitude of other emotions all flooding me at once.

I’ve kept this all quiet over the last three to four months mostly because I felt I needed to get my own head around it first. Also, it’s not something I always want to talk about. I don’t’ want people always asking if I’m pregnant yet, how I’m feeling or what’s going on. Not that I don’t appreciate people’s concern but I live so much in my own head at the moment that sometimes when I actually manage to do something else or think of something else, I don’t like to be pulled back into talking about it right at that moment.

That’s why I’ve decided to start blogging about it… because I come here and talk about it when I want to, in the way that I want to. There are things I would write on this blog that I wouldn’t say to friends or family, because it’s one thing to sit here in the dark, crying and writing something on my blog… it’s another to sit there sobbing in front of people, regardless of how close we are or how much I know they love me.

My family and friends that I’ve shared this with over the past few months have been incredibly supportive, and I love them for it. I know that none of them really understand what I am going through and often aren’t sure what to say to make me feel better, but that’s the thing… there’s nothing anyone can say. It’s something I have to go through and get through and there isn’t anything that will make it feel better unless it actually works.

That is when I will feel better… the day that I see that + sign.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that I live in a funk every day of the week, all month long. I have been getting out with friends, having a good time and trying to go on with life like normal. I can’t deny that the majority of my thoughts are completely entangled in what we are going through at the moment though.

So, what if I was pregnant? Ha… I can’t even imagine it.

No, that’s a lie… I imagine it every day, a million times a day. I just can’t imagine it ever being real.

That is my honest answer to this 30 Days of Truth question.

30 Days of Truth: Day 27

Breigh — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 21:39:21 +0000

OMG IT IS SO TOTALLY MY LAPTOP!!

Seriously, if you follow me on Twitter or are friends with me on Facebook, you are all too aware of my cardiac arrest this evening when my laptop died on me. I got up from a nap and realized it was really slow so I decided to reboot it. When it came time to start back up, nothing happened.

PANIC!!

I got my husband to do his magic cord pulling and button pressing maneuvers but nothing worked. That’s when the panic really set in.

While he was messing around with that I got on my phone and started Googling the model number and “won’t start” … I found lots of posts. That didn’t bode well… in the end I found this one post where a guy said how he took the laptop apart, removed the video card and used a hair dryer for four minutes (very specific) on this one certain chip.

My husband was like, ummm… I’m not so sure about that.

After watching the video numerous times, and having exhausted all of his magic button pushing, he decided he had nothing to lose. He took the laptop apart, got out the hair dryer and we both crossed our fingers.

Wouldn’t ya know it, the damn thing started right up! We couldn’t believe it!!

He suspects that there was something soldered that had come lose and the heat somehow reconnected it. That sounds feasible. Whatever it is, I’m sooo glad it’s working again because we really aren’t in position to buy a new one at the moment, and just the thought of going without a laptop gives me the shakes.

Literally… the shakes.

So that is that is the best thing that is going for me at the moment. My laptop is going and it damn well better keep going or I just may lose the few marbles I have left!

30 Days of Truth: Day 26

Breigh — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 20:57:22 +0000

Wow, this one isn’t dark or anything. Good grief.

I’d be lying if I said there weren’t times where I thought of just giving up. I had some pretty dark times when I first moved here. Having dropped everything back in Canada to come here and falling desperately in love with my husband, the thought of leaving and going home alone was unimaginable. The thought of staying somewhere that made me so unhappy was also unimaginable. I felt like a failure in every possible way and wasn’t coping very well with it at all.

There were times where I thought it’d be a lot easier to just give up, that no existence was better than the pitiful one I was living at the time. I don’t think I ever would have had the nerve to really do anything about it and I could never do that to my husband, family and friends. I’m sure a lot of people who suffered from depression entertained the same sorts of thoughts when they were at their lowest lows.

They do right? … because I’d feel a lot less pathetic knowing that I wasn’t alone in that.

Anyway, none of this is news to my regular visitors and I’m tired of talking about the bad times when I was new here. Things are good now. I’m glad that I saw it through and have been working to try to make things better here. I have great friends now, my relationship with my husband and my family is better than ever and life is really good. I hope to never ever have those thoughts again…

Gawd, only four days left. If this 30 Days meme doesn’t end soon I just may give up on life afterall! UGH!

30 Days of Truth: Day 25

Breigh — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 22:21:38 +0000

I am wondering how someone is meant to answer this. I guess if you had a really interesting or tragic life it might be easier. If I was a drug addict at one point in my life I might be able to say “Because I stopped taking drugs!”, or if I’d been in a horrific accident and had life saving surgery I could talk about the people who saved me.

No such luck. I’ve had a rather ordinary life without anything major standing out that makes me think it’s that ONE thing that is the reason I’m still alive.

Sure, there are plenty of reasons I’m still alive, like…

My husband hasn’t gotten sick enough of my PMS yet to kill me.
I don’t play with guns.
I don’t take naps on train tracks.
I’ve never handcuffed myself to a cement brick, jumped in the Maas and tried to get myself free.
Nobody has never tried to strangle me. Threatened, but not tried!
I’ve not developed a taste for crack.
I stopped playing in traffic.
I never go on the roof of tall buildings.
I rarely play with matches.
I try not to run with scissors.
… or walk down stairs while eating a lollypop.
I don’t swallow chicken bones.

I’m pretty sure they are at least some of the reasons I’m still alive today.

30 Days of Truth: Day 24

Breigh — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 21:11:54 +0000

Ugh, I’ve been dreading this one. I’m really not a big music person… there are a lot of songs I can sing along with but ask me who sings them or what they are called? Forget it…

I’m not going to do a playlist for just one person, because I’ll never come up with the songs but I’ll just give the ones that come to the top of my head at this moment and who they are for, what they make me think of and the times they take me back to in my mind. Songs that will always be special to me for whatever reason.

That will have to do.

Whenever I hear the song The Best Day by Taylor Swift I think of my mother because the feelings in the song are a lot of what I have always felt about her, and still do of course.

I still sing along with The Joker by Steve Miller and think about the amazing times I had with my friends in college. Me and the girls sang this in the car many a night on the way out to the clubs.

The Friends Theme will always make me think of Tony D (middle) and the boys. Friends was at it’s most popular during my second year in college and one night at a party I shot this photo of a few of the boys imitating the ‘Friends Walk’.

The Boxer by Simon and Garfunkel will always make me laugh remembering the time myself and some friends hung out with a busker outside the library in Halifax. We were all pretty drunk and I just remember standing on the little wall doing the big “PSSSH” when it came time for the cymbals bit. I think we sang a lot of songs with him that evening, but that’s the one that has stuck in my mind. We didn’t make a dime.

For as long as I live, the song Snowbird, and any other song by Anne Murray, will make me think of my grandmother. I’ll always love Anne Murray for that reason.

Growing up with a musician there are a lot of songs that remind you of them but Splish Splash by Bobby Darin and All I Have to Do is Dream by the Everly Brothers are my ‘Dad songs”, the ones he used to sing to me most and that are always the first to my mind when I think of him. I can still remember driving in downtown North Sydney while he sang “The Dream Song”, as I called it as a child, and taught me the words.

Any song by P!NK will always have a connection for me to my friend Penny, she loves her just as much as (maybe more than) I do, and we even went to see her in concert together.

Please forgive me, the next song is Celine Dion.

This is a song that I played over and over again while I was still in Toronto back in 1999. I sang, I cried, I wailed… and I missed Xander. This was my go-to song when I needed to let it all out as I was waiting to make the move over here. It wasn’t a long wait really, but it felt like forever.

I never, ever, want to miss him that badly again. My recent trip to Canada was the longest we’ve been apart in over 12 years, and that was only three weeks. What can I say, we’re clingy. I can think of worse things to be when you’ve been married this long!