Back to Reality

Today we fly home, and rejoin reality. We need to go back, mainly to stop spending money like it's meaningless to us, in this gorgeous city with its absurdly high prices. Recently I wrote about building the interior life, and I think that's part of what this trip was about for me. I invested in myself, and in my marriage, and I think that the effort made for both will bear fruit in the upcoming days and years.

Stopping to savour the little things gives us a renewed focus on the big things. It's like the lens of a camera zooming in and bringing a sharp sense of detail to the subject matter. When we are busy and consumed with regular life and stress, the picture is slightly fuzzy around the edges, but stepping back and changing up your routine gives you another way to look at things.

This trip has done that for me. I knew I loved my husband, but I didn't know I still had that spark of passion for him, as alive as its ever been, but simply dormant under the day-to-day arrangements of our family life. It's alive and well, and we have renewed our affection and our friendship in a very real way during these stolen moments filled with fun and beauty.

A good friend once told me that I should never waste a moment missing my kids while on a trip, because I'll long to see them, and have those warm and happy feelings about them, and about two minutes after I've hugged and kissed them and offered them their present, they will fight with each other or do something to irritate me, and I'll long for the peace of vacation. I found that advice a little harsh the first time I heard it, but over the years I have tested it out and found it to be true. So on this trip in particular, I fully enjoyed my time away from them, secure in the knowledge that they were making memories of their own with their Grandma, and I will be glad to see them today, but I didn't pine for them while I was gone.

We just have one flight between us and our home. Two and a half hours in a small box in the sky, watching a movie and sipping a coke, and we will be home and back in our regular lives. I'm looking forward to being home in my space with my family near me. I wouldn't change a moment of the relaxed vacation we had, but I'm glad that I also love my regular life, and am not sad to get back into it, and dream of the next vacation opportunity.