reality break

In about a week my little family of three is headed off to western Montana for Henry to meet his great grandmother (the second of three for him) and for her to meet him. Part of me isn’t looking forward to it much at all. The travel will be fairly short but schedules always get screwed up. My grandma isn’t in the best health and she is very set in her daily routine. I fear she will be happy to have us for about two hours. We will mostly be doing helpful things for her for the duration. We are paying for this, taking vacation time, and hiring a dog sitter, and, and, and for a trip that has little appeal.

In an effort to psych myself up for it and rationalize it, I have come up with a silver lining. It may not be a real break in many ways but it is a break from my daily life and man do I need one. More important though is that lately I spend about two minutes of quality time a day of any sort with my husband if we’re lucky. We are both working a lot. I want to say too much but how the hell does anyone get by and not work a fair amount? Life has been hectic and sleep has been short. Planning this and other travel this month is stressing me out and now Jason is sick. Patience and tempers are short around here.

When our little microcosm gets intense we take it out on each other but when we are out of our comfort zone it’s us against the world. Travel, and in particular family “vacations,” have always given us the opportunity to reconnect with each other if only to desperately distance ourselves from the craziness. We’re not that bad right? We are different! We are different together! It suits us. So, that’s my silver lining. I have no doubt that I will have much to say and probably a totally different take on it when we get back but that’s my story for now. If only we could all get some sleep this little trip might actually look a little bit fun.