Leaving

The day had come. It was time to leave. Leaving was a little crazy though. Crazy because there is so much to do before you leave for two months. Things to check, pack, wash, put away. Who knows what we left the house looking like. I hope it was clean. I hope it was orderly. Leaving the house when it's not so tidy is okay, really it's no big deal even. It's the coming home to an disorderly home that gets ya. One of my favorite things is coming home. My next favorite thing is coming home to a nice, clean, tidy, home. yes. that just has warm fuzzies written all over it.

The morning of L day the alarm was set to go off at 8:09 (I never can set my alarm for an even time). I woke up at 7:43. I decided to try and sleep until the alarm was set to go off. I laid there for a minute and looked at my clock expecting ten or fifteen minutes to have passed. nope. Only one had gone by. I let my head fall back into the pillow and force my eyes closed. I am determined to make myself sleep. I slept. Open my eyes, look at the clock. 7:45 it stares back at me. Irritated at the clock for not cooperating with me I throw the covers off of me, sit up, turn the broken clock off and get up. I start throwing all of the last minute things into the suitcase. I put in a load of laundry, I fix breakfast, nothing fancy, just cereal, bagels, and lot of milk and juice (can't let anything go to waste you know). Plop down at the kitchen table and munch on some of my selection. de-lish. I leave it for the hubs to eat whatever he wants and I go on my merry way switching the wash to dry and putting in a second load. I find a pair of sorts that is missing a button ...that's why I didn't wear those ones last summer... and search for some thread and needle. Since there is no time to fuss with finding the properly matching color thread I pick the first one I see and stitch the button back in place. light tan on dark brown. nice. my shirt will cover it though, right? whew. a few down, a million more things and counting to do.

Upstairs I fold, roll, and squeeze more clothes than necessary into the bags we are taking. The buzzer for the laundry goes off... I run down to get that, tote it upstairs, and the folding, rolling, squeezing process begins all over again. And the putting away of clothes, can't leave a mess behind, you know. People text, I text back. Must check email. Don't forget to print off the itinerary. Run the dish washer. Write that check to those people. put the mail out for Bob (the post man) to get. Charge the phones. Charge the ipods (miserable trip without those). Pack the chargers. Pack snacks. Mail comes. Hunny calls for me to come out, it sound urgent. He's holding an envelope. for me. It's the important note I've been dying to get. Open the letter. Read the letter. Trash the letter. It's not what I was hoping for. Cry. Blubber. wash face. Mama-in-law is on her way. Calm down. Hunny hands me a bag. Open. Out comes a dress. A very pretty dress. He says he had no idea there was so much crap out there you have to look through to get to the good dresses. It's so hard to find one good dress when all of the others are so ugly. true. now he knows why it takes so long to shop... Thankfully it fits like a charm. It makes me cry again. He got me a perfectly sweet dress to celebrate and instead had to give it to me to cheer me up. and it does. But for some reason it makes me cry. oh good gracious. Wash face. Make up the face. pack the make up. Friends come over and bring an awesome filing cabinet with them they found for me. I've always wanted a filing cabinet of my very own. This makes me happy. Chit chat. Chat chit. The hubs loads them up with all of the food we can't possibly eat before we leave, in an hour, and they're off. We forgot to give them the milk. shucks. Hubs Mama and sisters come over. Wash the dishes, put the dishes away. Go to the post office. Go to the bank. Take the filing cabinet upstairs. Send school stuff off. save school stuff on zip drive. eat? three bites. Zip up bags. load up the car. run through the house to make sure it's all done. Everything's finished. Locked, closed, dark.

Leave.

Drive to airport. Check in line is, of course, the longest one I've seen in the past three years. We're late. I'm impatient. I'm tight all over. Our turn. Get tickets. Go through security. check. whew. get to gate. sit. relief floods. whew. We made it. We're actually going. wild. Heart beat starts to slow. My body begins to relax. Board the airplane. take off, land, repeat. Get bags find ride. New things to see, new things to do. Calm.

We are home sweet temporary home.