As a young woman, the desire to be with the person I loved was strong. There are so many stories written about the feeling of being in love, about the way that it feels to be gathered close and held. It was hard for me to move past that ideal, to know that my beloved would return but that my bed would be empty at night. It was even harder to realize that this is the way my married life would be if AAta was to ask for my hand, until he was too old to sail. I would spend the good years of my life waiting, which I could do, it would just take some getting used to.
I found that the other women who had partners who were gone for much of the year became my new friends. Not because we talked about the people we loved, but because we didn't, because we spent as much time being busy as we could.
