Saturday, August 9, 2008

Viva Nashvegas

For our anniversary, J surprised me with a mini break - NO KIDS - to see a friend in Nashville. We had planned to come here this weekend as a family, but cancelled the trip after spending 11 1/2 hours in the car with the crumbgobblers to see family last month. With IV and MG crawling, climbing, opening drawers and generally leaving a house looking like a crime scene that would dupe even the best CSI agent, we realized we just can't subject non-family members to the Circus that is us. KJ (the friend) and her husband are 100% gracious and would have tolerated us, but J and I would have been stressed out the entire trip. Not worth it.

So, with a wee bit of separation anxiety, I set off a couple nights ago for a weekend of sleep and sunburn. It was fabulous to drive something besides the mini-van and there is nothing like driving down the highway and singing as loudly to whatever you want, sometimes talking out loud like a crazy person to God, sorting out some of the crudiness of your life. It's wonderful.

Wonderful until, when you are SO CLOSE to your destination, there are flashing highway signs telling you the exit you need to access the interstate you need to THE CITY YOU ARE TRYING TO ENTER is closed and there is a detour. Well, okay. Hmmm...no detour signs. Where the frick am I?? (only it's not frick - cursing under stress is an issue I have) Ummm...that doesn't look like a safe place to exit...neither does that...calling KJ...no one knows where I am. Exit on a reasonably safe part of who-knows-where to a Cracker Barrel with a chain-link fence around it. Great. After a painful conversation w/some randoms in Cracker Barrel, a customer finally helps out and tells me what road I'm on and sort of directs me towards the city. KJ's parents then come to the rescue and take me on the tour-de-Nashvegas on a route that was surely used by bootleggers during Prohibition and I safely arrive, over an hour later than planned.

Since then, all has been bliss and I've felt normal for the first time in over a year. I've slept in past 7-ish, eaten breakfast before 9:30 a.m., had lunch when I was hungry, and haven't had to change my clothes because one of the kidlets spit up all over me. I have started a book (I wasn't even sure I was still literate). I used a hairdryer for the first time in, oh I don't know. I went out for lunch. I haven't been able to stop thinking about the family and want to call every hour. I know they're okay, but they have consumed my life for so long now that I don't know what to do with myself when they aren't around. I am relaxed and loving this time away, but I miss home and all that is psycho with it. I miss the circus.

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