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He’s at it again. He doesn’t know it yet, but soon he’ll be on his way, summoned by something I cannot hear or see. It’s a part of him that I’ve had to learn to accept.

It’s taken me years to realise that when a mood of quiet contemplation falls upon him like a cloak, and he’s drawn to looking at the distant horizon, that soon he’ll be gone. There is a restlessness to his actions, an underlying need to prepare to go, to be in different surroundings. And it’s easier to help him on his way.

In the early years, we used to fight about it. The departures felt like a personal failing on my part. If I was enough — a good enough person and partner — surely he would stay? It wasn’t helped by his inability to articulate what he needed. He would shrug his shoulders, saying that he simply had to go. But he’d be back, and it was a promise that he has kept. I wasn’t convinced at the time, and felt that only heartache and loneliness was waiting for me. How could I explain to friends and family that he’d just gone, taken off for some unknown destination? And how could I go on with my ordinary existence without him?

The first couple of times were the worst. He seemed reluctant to go, yet drawn to be somewhere else. And I was unsure that he’d return, despite his promises. He said it was something that he had to do, and that the need to go was stronger than the call to stay. I felt inept and powerless, and even resented that it was something that he felt that he had to do on his own.

But life finds a rhythm, and I adjusted in a fashion to life without him. I swung between believing that he would be as good as his word and return, and contemplating with despair that this is how my life would be now. Just me, without him. I polished our memories as carefully as precious stones, holding them close during the long nights.

Then he returned, and was alight with stories and experiences and wonder. These times together had a particular intensity, and it was a little easier to let him go the next time. And the time after that. I grew accustomed to the periods without him, and treasured all the more the times that we had together.

Now I can identify the signs. When he’s becoming a bit restless, and only settles when looking out at the horizon for long spells, I know it’s getting close to the time when he must go. Instead of resisting, I quietly start to prepare his things. It is an integral part of who he is, and part of why I love him like I do.

This piece was written to a prompt on the Writer’s Digest website. That Distant Horizon: write about someone contemplating a horizon.

Photo: Hartley Valley view on sunset