We were gone for four days. Four days, a mere three and a half hours away by car. We try to do this every year – a long weekend with our kids, away from all the requirements of life as we define them when focused on our daily routines. In the mountains, we are faced with intermittent connectivity, one tv (somewhat inaccessible) and nothing but the breeze and the vistas demanding our attention.
We played board games.
We talked with each other.
We napped (not together).
The guys golfed; my daughter-in-law and I read, spa’ed, and pondered nothing more serious than what to eat for lunch.
And I got the snippets that sustain memories and my heart…My son upstairs in the loft, while downstairs I could hear him sigh in his sleep. He used to do that when he was a little boy. Just a sigh out of the arms of Morpheus, tender and calm. Listening to the melody of the kids caught up in unguarded laughter, oblivious to the delight it evoked in me. Missing the one couple who didn’t make the trip this year. Stepping out on the deck in the middle of the night and whispering thank you’s to the sky, so abundantly lit with stars that I was left breathless. Another memory to include in the passage of time.
And then we got home. And I become certifiable.
What is it? Why do I feel completely obsessed with ensuring that the nest be properly feathered after such an abbreviated absence? Get to the supermarket and refill the coffers (we were gone four days, there was only one woman here hangin’ with the Sirs – how much food was missing? Not much), buy milk, extra coffee, juice, fruit…Laundry – after all, we must have sullied loads of clothes while spending a long weekend dressed in nothing but shorts and t-shirts. Sheets? Changed – though no one slept in our bed. Quick trip to PetSmart for a treat for the Sirs who had to endure the indignity of being completely spoiled and coddled while we were gone.
One should never be her own therapist, for I am already scouring the DSM-V for my diagnosis.
Waiting for the Karma Truck 