Sometimes you just gotta drop off the face of the planet... part 1

I have an admission. I’ve been a lying liar telling lies. I’m sitting at Reagan International Airport (DCA) as I write this. I probably won’t finish this while I sit here, and this won’t be posted for a few days a while. But its all part of this HUGEEEE scheme I’ve been planning for almost a year. Well, most of it. Some of this elaborate scheme wasn't set in stone until a few months ago. But. Things have finally fallen into place.

My elaborate scheme included me lying to my entire family for months, telling them that I wouldn’t arrive to MD early enough for a leave chit to be approved. Sometimes there are definitely benefits to no one in your family having been in the military.. They are clueless when it comes to processes. I'd purposely propagated a trip to PA to see my old roommates and their new baby, so my family would believe I wasn't in MD. Their new baby won't be born until January, but I made the lack of knowledge work to my advantage, if there had been any questions. 

I couldn't find my boarding pass,
so my baggage claim will have to work as empirical evidence.

I'm sitting at DCA, but where am I going? Orlando. Teh Bear doesn't “know” I'm coming. He thinks he knows. I almost told him last night. I was going to threaten to bring sparkly fingernail polish and paint his toes. I got to, “I'll bring…” and realized what I was about to say. Had I just finished it, he would have accepted it as a non-threatening threat… But, when I realized what I was going to say, I just stopped. And Teh Bear prompted me, “Bringgggg, what?” I couldn’t look at him. I said the first thing I could come up with, “I bring all the boys to the yard.” He laughed at me, because he not only got my milkshake reference (btw, I hate that stupid song), but he was probably 99% sure that he knew what was going to happen. He would be right, but he let me continue my very very transparent lie of my trip to PA. 

So, I'm sitting in the airport. People are coming and going. Everyone around me is going somewhere else. It's kinda that in-between that when you think about it, feels like something so much larger than you, but at the same time, so... together? I can't think of a good word for it. It makes me feel not alone when the world feels so big. Maybe that guy in the suit has been on a business trip and he's going home to his family.. or maybe the other way around. That kid and his dad, maybe they are going to FL for a baseball conference. This guy beside me is playing Rome on his Inspiron 6400. I had a computer like that before. 

I'm glad that I'm finally able to enact my real plans. The ability to go and “surprise” Teh Bear. To celebrate his birthday with him. To get even a few days to enjoy with him, even if I know there will be things that come up. I was getting confused there for a while. Trying to remember to tell Teh Bear that I was driving to PA instead of going to the airport to get on a plane. Trying to remember what I would need for my arrival in Orlando while still maintaining that it was for my flight to NC on the 19th. So much planning confusion, which was the most difficult thing about my elaborate scheme. 

So now, I'm one step down. From this point on, its about maintaining my FB and blog silence. To continue the lie of being in PA and then back in MD for the holidays. 

I did talk to Teh Mom the other day and she had mentioned that she had considered making a surprise trip up to see me. Someone had told her that it probably wasn’t a good idea to surprise me. They were right. Not so much that I mind visitors, but did have to tell Teh Mom that I wasn’t going to be in town. I didn’t tell her where I was going, which she probably took as me just not telling her something to exclude her, but it was for her own good. 

For the past few nights, I've been unable to sleep. Planning surprises in my head. Imagining the reactions of people when I walk in unannounced. I finally broke down and told Teh BFF a few days ago. She's picking me up from the airport in Charlotte, which saves me on having to get a rental car, so I'm very grateful. I’m also hoping that she can record some reactions for me. 

It is now time to start boarding the plane. ORLANDO HERE I COME!!!! :)

Hopefully the plane will take a more direct path.