Sitting here on the red chaise in my parents room with the front windows cracked open. Outside there’s are two crows calling (squawking) to one another. One of them is picking around on the front yard where we had throw some seeds over the winter, but it can’t see me staring at it from inside. This morning I woke up, exercised on the elliptical, read the news, made a cup of tea, and now I am here writing this out.

Last night we took Zsolt to the airport and he flew off to Hungary. Actually, he’s still in the process of flying to Hungary and I can only imagine his state of exhaustion. By the time he makes it to his sister’s home in Erd, he’ll have been travelling for about 24 hours on very little sleep.

This morning I woke up, exercised, made a cup of tea . . . had some yogurt, fixed the bed, read the news . . . and now I’m here writing.

Make a plan: so this is my plan. Morning will be for writing, as it should always be but often is not, and this afternoon I’ll be reading up on NLP in order to better write around the topic of coaching, mentoring and leadership. This evening I’ll gorge myself on reality television and maybe help my dad with making dinner.

Zsolt and I often separate for long periods of time. He’s from Hungary, I’m from Canada . . . so when the holidays roll around, (and considering we currently have no children) one of us generally takes off to visit family for three to four weeks at a time. And when I say, ‘one of us’ that really means I take off to visit family, and leave Zsolt alone to fend for himself.

So I cannot hold a grudge against his going away for so long this time. Particularly since he’ll be attending his grandmother’s funeral and, I imagine, helping sort out things that need sorting.

But I guess it’s been a while since we split like this . . . about 14 months since our last separation (Christmas to Canada, which lasted for five weeks.)

Zsolt is a man full of wise words. This is largely because as a child he had a book of proverbs, and tried to memorize as many as possible. And while they don’t always make sense after he translated the Hungarian version to English, this particularl expression (something, I think, that came from a movie) works well. He says to me, “Even lovers need a holiday.”

And so he is right.

This month will be focused on my world, and my projects, and my wonderful work. It’s nice to have this time, even if being away from Zsolt does feel rather bizarre.

Even lovers need a holiday. It’s okay to be away from one another, and turn the focus onto yourself. And I like that that’s okay.

But geez, I do miss him. After being together so long, I think I may have forgotten how to be alone. However, I reckon it starts with routine.

This morning I woke up, fixed the bed, made tea, had some yogurt, checked my emails, read the news, and now I’m here writing . . . and it’s going to be a lovely day.