Home Again

Somehow going on vacation is much easier than returning from it!

Duh, you say? Well, it doesn't seem that simple to me. I had many things to coordinate before leaving. Closing up my apartment so that workers could come in and do some major work in the bathroom while I was gone. Dropping the dog off at my sister's in another town about an hour away. Visiting with friends who were kind enough to drop me off at the airport three hours away and pick me up when I returned. Trying to pack for winter weather in the same carry on bag I packed in the middle of July and since I do not have laundry facilities in my apartment I had to coordinate doing the wash along with the sort of three day pre-travel schedule I set for myself.

Coming home should have been simple. Get off the plane, drive home, pick up the dog and go forward, but life is never that easy in my world. It was like some giant secretary took an invisible finger and scrunched all those things that happen around the end of one month and the beginning of the next along the calendar so that when I woke up Thursday morning I hit the floor running. I quit running when I finally got home about 8:30 PM last night, dog in tow and crashed on my bed for a five hour nap that twisted my sleeping pattern like a pretzel, but which I desperately needed.

Now I finally have time to just sit back and savor the last two weeks! I have memories and pictures and even tiny videos of my time in Denver. Time spent with my son and daughter-in-law and beautiful baby granddaughter. It always amazes me when I get to visit them. They cram so much living and loving into every hour of the day I am in awe.

When I was raising my children I had ideas and thoughts about how things should be, what priorities were highest, where in the grand scale of life, time and effort and compassion should be apportioned, but like all people there was always that niggling thought that I might be off track. Now, as the mother of grown children and grandmother of more children I can sit back and observe the results of those years and I have to say I am pretty much content. What I might not have gotten right, my children seem ready, able, and willing to improve upon, but in general they make me feel really good. That's not a small thing in my opinion.

So, now I am home from vacation and it was a good one! I think that is what vacations are really for. They take me out of my ruts and lift me up so that my perspective has time to align itself, get all the kinks out and leave me ready to drop back into business as usual renewed.