As I write this I’m flying over the big blue ocean, a 4-year-old contentedly playing a LeapPad game next to me, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty showing on the tiniest airplane screen you’ve ever seen. My little sister is getting married, so I’m headed back to the US, more than ready for three weeks filled with celebration and copious amounts of Kansas City barbeque.
Even as I can barely contain the excitement, I’m preparing myself for the balancing routine. It can be an out-of-sync dance: this return to roots, to the people who so lovingly – and also sacrificially – sent us out into the world, to fill up all the time with everything we can cram in. And in the rare downtime, we find ourselves fumbling through awkward pauses no amount of questions or good intentions can fill. Where do we even begin to tell the stories, the joys and the heartaches? And how do we enter their world (our old one) when we know we’ll soon be gone again?
Join me over at Velvet Ashes for a few of my hair-brained (and jet-lagged) ideas.