Home Sweet Home

I was standing in the security line at Raleigh-Durham International Airport on Monday afternoon with a book in one hand, my PSP in the other, and an anxiously-awaited cross-country flight into my wife's arms in front of me. I had already checked my luggage and was readying my boarding pass and ID when my cell phone rang. I saw the area code, recognized it as a number from my publisher's office, and immediately sighed. This couldn't be happening.

I was told I needed to head back to the developer's offices to take care of some extra stuff the marketing team wants us to offer. It would probably only take a few hours, but there were no more flights that day and I really wanted to go home. I was so close, I could almost taste the cool mountain air that was sure to be blowing through the windows of my office back home in Washington. I was already mentally checked out. I suffered from horrendous insomnia for two weeks and I was drained. Not to mention my brother was flying in from Boulder, CO on Wednesday.

"Can I go home for a few days and come back next week? The airfare will be roughly the same at this point."

I arrived home a little before 1am Monday night and was as thrilled as ever to be back in my own home, with a full refrigerator -- dining out 3 times a day for 15 days isn't all it's cracked up to be -- and my own bed. Not to mention I got to see Kristin and my dogs again. Kristin took Tuesday morning off so she could sleep in with me and make a nice breakfast -- that was awesome. We sat and watched tv together and then she went to work. I slept most of the day. I was exhausted, completely drained. The book for Gears of War is going to be awesome and I'm really proud of the work I did on it, but man was it exhausting.

I wanted to do a little shopping yesterday. Wanted to finish the one chapter I have left to wrap up; and even wanted to go for a nice run on the trails near my house. But I couldn't. I was just so glad to be home, I didn't want to leave.

Sometime next week, I'll fly back to NC for a couple of hours of work and then fly all the way home again the next day. It will suck. It would have made more sense to just stay overnight on Monday and finish up, but sometimes you just have to do what feels good. And nothing felt better than finally coming home.