Leaving London

Leaving London

My salad for Thursday, September 16th was a cute little guy from an Italian Cafe inside the London-Stansted Airport. By the way, if you ever fly into London and you see 3 airports available, just be aware that Stansted is an hour and half bus ride away from the actual London. By the time I was eating this salad, we had had a very uneventful day "tourist-wise", but I had already experienced a dangerous sway of emotions. The Mister too.

Morning after our late-night play and we head back into London(from the suburbs) with hopes of actually entering the sites that closed down at 5:00 p.m. We hopped onto the double-decker bus, then sputtered around until we were at Picadilly Square when we looked at our clocks and realized our only chance of making the bus back to the airport was to get off the bus immediately and brisky walk back to the station. This is how life goes when you are spontaneous by nature. You miss stuff! (thanks for letting me sleep in Mister).

So we hit the sidewalks. Our bus leaves in 45 minutes and we are a brisk 35 minute walk away. No time for dilly-dallying. Game on! I decide to speed-walk by jetting past the hoity toity couples dressed in wool and hats, I weave between window-shoppers and big-eyed tourists. I pass The Mister and start a mean pace.

Five minutes later I decide to look back and check on The Mister. I'm right to the point where I'm not sure what street to turn on, and want to make sure we're still together.

We are not!

I backtrack a block to see if he had to step into a store.

He did not!

I head back again and pause to look around.

No husband!

And while I like to think of myself as a strong and independent woman, capable of traveling alone and harnessing a spirit of adventure, I totally panic.

My mind races It's too busy for him to have been taken out by the London Mafia. Is there even a London Mafia? Oh crap, I have the tickets, he has the passports. We are going to miss our bus! If we miss our bus we will miss our flight! How did I lose him! If he's gone what do I do? I could call Andy & Erin (who we stayed with) and they could help me start a search. I will be on the news as the stupid American who lost her husband. I don't want to be on the news. There is people all around but I am alone. Is he okay? What happened?

Drama right? At this point, I am choking back the tears. I decide on a plan! Hurry back to the station-that's all there is time for anyway. He will be there and we will figure out what happened. right? {sniff}

So I enter a shop and ask a clerk which way I need to go. My voice is cracking and choking because of the stupid places I am going in my head.

I head back onto the sidewalk and get ready to cross the street. At this point it was been a solid ten minutes since I lost him. I look back and see The Mister of the House! He is heading straight for me and doesn't make a sound. I practically fall into his arms and I'm pretty sure I made some weird sound.

Which brings me to this: I am crinkle-faced, voice-cracking, making weird mourning sounds. The Mister is terrified he lost me as well! I mean really, what is his life without me? Here's how he looked in his total moment of panic:

You can see how the dark deep red fear totally takes over his face.

And yet his panic looked vaguely familiar.

This is why you want to be with The Mister of the House when The Titanic goes down.

What happened? I didn't lose The Mister. He lost me! He was walking ahead of me, but stopped 5 minutes after me and started doing the back-tracking crap that I was doing. He was also crying inside like a baby.

p.s. I had a death-grip on his hand the rest of the day.

Comments

Mister. September 27, 2010
Yes, I was very scared...but crying like a baby? On the inside maybe. Look at my happy picture. And then change the color to orange. That is my crying face.
paula September 28, 2010
Oh my....I would have been bawling. I'm glad it didn't turn out to be as bad as you had anticipated when you first realized you had become separated from each other. It's a horrible feeling to be lost. Next time I see you remind me to tell you about the time I got lost in NYC on the subway...AT NIGHT! I truly thought I was going to die that night.
LGH September 29, 2010
Amber, totally awesome post. And, totally awesome resolution.
jennaloha September 29, 2010
I love that EXITED is green- oooh lala.

And I love to see that you have nervous, anxious episodes because you always seem so confident all the time. "All the time" meaning in Cyberspace and when you were in high school :)

P.s. this post was adorable and made me L out loud.
Lee Family September 30, 2010
Ha HA Ha! This hilarious post reminded me of that one time when I dressed in a wig/sunglasses/ weird clothes? I can't remember and screamed "Mister's" name when he exited off the airplane with all the Radio Shack nerds. Same Face - I guess SURPRISED would be in purple, although there was no purple background to alert me that he even noticed me . . . remember that - that was
Anonymous October 4, 2010
Loved the post. I guess you did make your flight--did you run to make it! Thanks so much for the hot pads and candy--yum! By the way, Derek is now reading your posts and loves them.
Mrs. Olsen October 5, 2010
Jenna- You're the one to talk about cyber-confidence. Oh the a-mazing life we lead...but only on the blog right?

Mom, yes we made the bus. We speedwalked and that did the trick.
Lee Family October 5, 2010
My comment was the hilarious. What the heck? When I am so funny, I expect comment validation or I am not going to put so much considerable thought into the comments. thx and good bye.
Mrs. Olsen October 5, 2010
Wow stalker. I would have to say your comment was "the hilariou-est" (is that what you meant?) not to be confused with the hairiest.

And it is a true fact of the universe that The Mister needs more people like you to force new emotions upon him in public. Come over and I'll buy you a new wig.
Anonymous October 16, 2010
Great story, Amber. Glad you were reunited before ending up on the cover of Star.

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