Isn't it amazing how when you meet someone or see someone you already know, who is just bubbling with personality, you just have to feel warm, excited, rejuvenated and happy? Their whole demeanour is infectious and you want to just feel inspired and part of their whole experience.
After a big day yesterday, working till 10.30pm and not inspired to finish the last 5 properties I had to write, I set my alarm for 5.15am to finish them before the next working day began. My American lover, at the same time, was working a 7pm-7am shift (my time 11am-11pm), but realised half way through it, that he had to chair a meeting the next day (or really, that day), a 2 hour drive away that he thought started at 1pm, but in fact started at 9am, essentially meaning that he had to finish a 12 hour-shift, jump in the car and drive like a maniac on no sleep with no time to eat or catch some caffeine to get there.
He called me as he left, feeling like he won't make the 2 hour drive, as he had no chance to sleep throughout his busy shift (somedays he can catch 15 minutes here or there). I was worried about his well-being, and he was talking that if he had a sleep-start, he knows he will just tumble off the road with dramatic force at 80 miles an hour. With talk like that, my worry just intensifies. Our conversation kept getting cut off as he drove, and I knew he was conscious that I needed my sleep for my early start, but I told him that if he needs someone to talk to while driving to keep him awake, just call.
I woke up at 5.15am and hadn't heard from him over the last 6 hours. I was still exhausted and uninspired to do anything. But I had to get into it, so I dragged myself off to my computer and started to be creative. Just as I finished 4 of the 5 properties, he calls me as excited as ever.
He was on this terrific caffeine high just leaving the meeting, driving back to work to do a reduced shift of four hours, that started at 9pm. It had just turned 3.30pm his time, so he should be back at 5.30pm to get a few hours catch up sleep. But he was so excited about so many things he wanted to tell me. He even, at some stage, managed to read 17 pages of my short story to give me some valid criticism and wanted to go over them with me while he was driving. But most of all, he wanted me to keep him awake. I had to get my boys ready for school, and he called just as I usually start the morning routine. But I managed to get them breakfast, and they were self-sufficient getting dressed and getting their lunch-boxes ready, so I kept talking to him, keeping him going, as he gave me the occasional countdown of how many miles to go - 115 miles, 76 miles, 40 miles, just 10 minutes to go.
He told me jokes, even joked about having a car accident so he could get a ride back to the hospital in the back of an ambulance so he could sleep! He even made me laugh out loud! He showed me the rain falling on the windscreen and the barren but most enchanting drive along the midland highway - a drive that I've done plenty of times myself, a drive that just feels like home to me. He was amazing, an inspiration in so many ways. To have been awake working a straight 24 hours or more, and still uplifting, just puts my mood right up there with his.
He managed to get back to his hotel room a little before 6pm his time, enough to catch 2 hours sleep before having to start again. For me, he has just put a beaming smile on my face, one that hopefully I can pay it forward to others during my day. Something that I know I do, when I'm at my happiest.
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