Don’t think I’m carrying around a list of personal grudges. The fact is that I’m joining in with your forgiveness, as Christ is with us, guiding us. After all, we don’t want to unwittingly give Satan an opening for yet more mischief—we’re not oblivious to his sly ways! 2 Corinthians 2:9-11 (The Message)
Remember when the Apollo Spaceships would reenter the atmosphere and its bottom turned fiery red? As a kid, I worried that the astronauts were going to burn up. That’s a bit like reentry into real life after a wonderful vacation. I’m out of breath and running from the moment I step from the car. I keep reminding myself it was all worth it and it was, but coming home is HARD. Of course, I know that I am terribly blessed to be able to take such great vacations now that we are empty nesters (almost). I especially know how blessed after spending time with Vicki’s Rich and hearing some statistics. Do you know that after paying their bills, 70% of Americans have less than $2,000 in disposable income each YEAR? We are so so blessed to be able to travel like we have this year. (And while, husband, has moped back to work, I have an ace up my sleeve because in less than a month, I will be back in the mountains on another adventure.) All that is said to counteract the whining that I want to do about dusting off my brain so it can solve all the problems and tackle all my work that was left after taking care of everyone else’s problems all summer. Not to mention my beautifully painted and formerly clean house that suffered under the care of a 19 year old male and two Dobermans. I think there was enough sand on my floor to renourish the beaches of the entire Gulf Coast. When I am not at work slaving away to save enough money for my next vacation, I’ve been doing laundry, cleaning floors, washing dishes and dusting. It is amazing how much dirt accumulates with just a couple of weeks neglect. Something interesting, no, more than interesting, practically miraculous happened while husband and I were on vacation. Like sand left to pile up in the corners of a room, in any relationship problems get ignored over time. It seems better to pretend everything is okay rather than to get messy while cleaning it up. Some things happened during our journey to jog our memories and prompt us to resolve some issues and talk about some things that we have danced around for thirty years. As hard as we tried to avoid it all this time, now we are wondering why we let those wounds fester so long, because it feels so good to open up, forgive and start over. Yes, thirty years is a long time to carry around the weight of it all. Unlike traveling on the motorcycle when I am forced to keep my belonging in one small pack, our baggage was enough to supply a year long cruise around the world. Now, much to the disgust of that nineteen year old who doesn’t know how to load a dishwasher, husband and I are closer than ever. And it feels as good as a nice, clean floor. No, better.
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