leaving and a lesson...

We dropped Cary at the airport yesterday morning. (It's only 4 months since we picked him up from there!) We had a flat tyre on the way to the airport which Cary fixed. I guess it's a good thing it wasn't on the way home so I didn't have to deal with it. I was not in a hurry to get home. So we stopped at a playground - AJ's chickenpox are all crusted over now so he's no longer contagious - then to the fruit store where we stocked up on fruit and greens. When we did get home, I didn't want to be here. We've really simplified our living, especially after living in a caravan for a year. But it still felt like too much stuff around me. I wished we didn't have any of it and I could go back to being a free spirit and be on that plane with my man.

When Cary was away while we were in the caravan park, we had lots of neighbours, always someone to talk to and who I knew were looking out for us. Being in a house I feel kind of isolated. I miss the social interaction. Having the space inside to spread out is nice, and extra shelter from the rain and cold. If we had a larger trailer, we would still be "on the road". I guess it's a trade-off either way.

Had an interesting experience the day before he left. Cary was showing me how to run the old John Deere lawnmower he recently picked up from a garage sale for $5. I'd never seen a mower like it but he said it would have been used on a golf course or bowling green. I was trying to pull the cord to start it and after a few tries, the muscle in my right forearm felt like it was on fire as though it was going in two different directions at once. I immediately knew there was a lesson there for me. I thought about Cary leaving and how I take things he does - like mowing the lawn - for granted. And knowing he'll be next to me when I wake up in the morning. But he's not going to be there, for at least a month, and I'll miss him. I know that he knows that I adore him but I feel I could show that even more deeply by appreciating him even more. And I can feel that love for him more deeply by feeling gratitude.... I'm taking that lesson with me in my relationship with my kids and other people in my life. Including myself. I take my own body for granted which was shown to me by a very tender forearm that night and the next morning.