Coming Home Blues

Even though, as I mentioned in the prior post, I'm mostly feeling "back to normal" these days, whatever that may be, I still had a bit of a bumpy reentry coming back from vacation. Last year, arriving home from our annual Montana trip triggered a long, difficult sad period. We had missed our flight (yikes!) and rather than having the nanny pick us up at a reasonable time mid-day and keep B occupied and me company while I unpacked and she prepared us dinner, I had to call in a big favor from a friend to collect us from the airport late at night. We arrived home to a dark, very empty house, and my heart and soul felt dark and empty for what seemed like a long time afterwards.

This year, the effect was much lessened, but I still feel blah-ish. Our flight was delayed an hour or so, on the ground in Missoula while we waited for SFO visibility to improve, and I was fine. A dear friend who lives near the airport picked us up in our car, and I took her back to her place before heading home. No problem. The nanny had done the grocery shopping and was preparing a crock pot dinner as we arrived. Great! But it wasn't going to be ready in time for dinner. Huh. OK, I'll make quesadillas. Nope, we are out of refried beans and the nanny didn't pick up the shopping list before going to the store today. There was nothing else fresh in the house for dinner -- I had to thaw some leftovers. And that was enough to send me over the edge into testiness. What's the big deal? We'll have the crock pot meal tomorrow, and the leftovers were tasty and easy. But it was the disappointment, the mismatch of reality to expectation, that got to me. I had a grand vision of being taken care of, of not having to think or manage for a few short hours after being ON for nine days. It was painful to arrive in the kitchen 10 minutes before dinner time (and nanny quiting time) to discover that I had to take care of myself and B after all, that I had to manage. It was a trivial but recognizable echo of losing T suddenly and unexpectedly, after marriage and baby and the expectation of having a partner to share the care and management with. I am just hopeful that the after-effects won't linger this time.