The truth is, I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go back home yet.

I squished over in the large bed to make room for my fur sister. The emotional creature she is, she could sense I was leaving when I eventually began gathering my things together. Her cold nose pounding on the closed door while I was getting dressed. And though my mother talks to her, the truth is, no words will soothe her soul when I leave again.

But I couldn’t do it. The long weekend, in which I’d traveled 280 miles by jeep for some rest and relaxation, had turned into anything but that. The 60 mile drive to the hospital, the impromptu wedding, the death, the mourning, the dinner, and the 60 mile drive back. I came out more exhausted than I went in. 

The clouds were heavy and grey, threatening to pour at any moment, but we still piled into the car and drove into town, to have a Me day.

 I wish I could tell you how exciting it was, but it wasn’t. It was falling in love with a local coffee shop’s brew, and the boys who wear flannel, not cuz its hip, but because thats just what you wear up here. It was smelling herbs and spices til we choked, and tasting oils and vinegars til our tongues burned. It was spending half an hour in a shop no larger than a trailer, locating gems. It was inhaling incense in the New Age shop and feeling the magick all around me, or maybe it was the woman gently singing along to the music. It was eating burnt pizza in a hut and laughing with my mom, and trolling thru the grocery store, cherry picking items. Lamenting on the lack of availability back home. The truth being, its never been home. The truth being, I make the 280 mile drive up here, cuz this is where my heart is. This is where I rest, and write, and breathe..

Eventually the rain began to come down, and we grow tired, so we began back. Back to the house where dinner was cooking and the pets were waiting. Tomorrow, life will resume its flow. I will pack up my things, and my four pets, and I will make the journey back. Maybe I didn’t get the rest I’d come for, but I am leaving with so much more. This weekend scared me, but it also opened my eyes. And for the first time, I finally feel my age.