Take me home

Officially one whole month here in Virginia, and the homesickness is starting to creep in. I think it's because the first part of the move feels like a vacation or a grand adventure-- it's all about discovering a new place and having fun. In addition, being reunited with Don after such a long separation felt so good that it drove any bad feelings out for awhile; it was like a honeymoon and I really wasn't thinking about anybody but the two of us, as evidenced by the mushy posts previous.

By homesickness, I really just mean missing family and friends, because Texas itself... well, there's not so much to miss. I don't miss the weather, the pollution, the traffic, the utter blandness. Sorry Texas, but Virginia's gotcha beat physically. I'm really starting to miss my family and friends, though, back home. I'm very grateful that we're taking a family vacation next month, so I'll be seeing them soon, but I feel slightly overwhelmed at the idea of a two-person Thanksgiving. If only I had a really close friend who lived a few blocks away and loved to cook, so that we could spend two whole days baking and cooking for Thanksgiving while our husbands gradually drank all the beer! Oh wait, that was Vermont. Never mind. (Hi Becca!)

I wish Don was coming with me on the trip next month as we originally planned, but c'est la vie, I guess. It was much more important that he go home to his own parents at such a crucial time and there's only so much vacation time to go around. I'm just glad that my parents see him as such a part of the family now that he's automatically invited on all the vacations and everything, because I hope that this tradition of taking family trips together even as adults continues but I only want to go if Don can, too, not if it involves leaving him behind. And I like the fact that Don likes my family enough to be enthusiastic about the idea of travelling with them, rather than just taking vacations by ourselves. But on the bright side, we don't have to find somebody to watch Cathy and Alice, since he'll still be here for this one.

This has been such a tumultous year; so much has happened, so much has changed. I need some time to just reflect, to recharge my batteries before next year, because I feel instinctively that the coming year will be just as eventful, possibly even chaotic. From here on out I'll be working two jobs and a lot more hours, and while it will be nice to have the money in the bank and to meet more people, I'm afraid of not getting that time to just think, to sort everything out that's in my mind so that I can move on with a clear head. Sometimes I tend to block painful thoughts instead of working through them, or I don't revisit certain emotional areas and they come back unexpectedly. In a meeting at work yesterday, my boss told a story about her mother who is in her nineties, which made me spontaneously cry because I suddenly remembered my Grandma, who was 95 when she passed away last March. Even though I've grieved for her and accepted that she has gone, the sudden re-realization that I'll never see her again was overwhelming. Maybe Don's mother's cancer and his anxiety over losing his parents has brought my own fears closer to the surface? I don't know.