Same job, different uniform.

Monday, May 19, 2014

Half a Person, Abroad

I'm about to leave for my first international vacation since my honeymoon.  I've traveled a lot, a handful of times abroad. I've always left the United States whole.

Not this time. I have a husband now and I always feel like half a person when we're apart. The two young children that moved in and eat our food and explode our idea of free time--they have really pulled me apart.

It's a treat to go to the grocery store alone, but ten minutes into shopping and something feels off. Where are the wee voices that should be prattling nonstop? No one is asking me to get out or back in the shopping cart. I pass the cereal aisle unmolested. There is no negotiating, no coaxing, no laughter, no revelations.

Can I really be so attached to a person that going to the grocery store alone is at once liberating and boring?

Yes.

And so I travel half a person,  a shadow. I'll drink it in and savor the liberty all the time absorbing every funny moment, every unusual situation, every reminder of things at home and store them all up to tell my children.


SHARE THIS: Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati