Done! And on its way.

By the time you read this, the pictured quilt will have been pressed and stuffed very tightly into a carry-on compression bag. The cat will have been dethroned, too, and I will be in an airplane.

I am feeling strangely trepidatious for this trip. For one, it's been quite awhile since I've flown (2006), and even longer since I've flown alone (2000). I keep having this weird feeling that I've forgotten how to fly. Of course, that's ridiculous. Flying isn't something you forget how to do, any more than you could forget how to hear or see or breathe.

Also, this is longest I'll be away from Patrick since the crazy nearly-month-long trip to Greece I took the first year we were together. That was with my friend Alexis, the same Alexis who's now earning her grad degree. Best friends since Freshman year, Greece was something we'd always talked about doing together. In the fall of 2006, we both found ourselves between jobs, and it was Alexis who was making the extra push for it to happen: "Before you're married, Kristina, we need to go to Greece."

So we went. It was a month of empty beaches and wind-whipped hair, bright sparkling white marble and octopi strung on wires along the grotto. Fresh fish at nearly every meal, spanakopita for breakfast, and a mad romance with Fanta orangeade. But in between, on planes or ferries or buses or cabs, I'd look out at that wide selfless ocean, and I would miss Patrick with a crushing, lovesick intensity.

Of course, it was our first year together. Things were like that: crushing, and lovesick, and intense. (Soaring, too, a lot of that.) We weren't living together, though that changed as soon as I came home. In the time since, I've made myself so completely his wife, I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do without him. Not in a hopeless sort of way, but in a, "My goodness, there's no one to cook dinner for!" sort of way. No one to turn to for a surefire laugh or tease or anecdote or hug, either, though Alexis is pretty good at all of those. I'm expecting it will give me something to think about: either I've changed a lot or I haven't. It can be so hard to tell.

Anyway, friends. Wish me happy hours of gazing out the airplane window, three days of celebrating and carrying on with my bestest, and lots of strappy sundress wearing. I'll be back here on Monday.