Home from vacation or the meaning of us-ness!

Having returned to work on Tuesday after taking a week off, I can say that after my third day on the job, I’m ready for another week off!

I spent the week hanging with my husband at home. With bits of time for boxing, long walks and some sweet meals.  And what a joy that was!  We got reacquainted with each other, cleaned like crazy as we expunged our apartment of useless junk (I won’t even say how much we threw out, suffice to say it would have been a great week to invest in Hefty Bags) and otherwise enjoyed the silence.

We also spent a lot of time talking about how we (a) missed the prodigal who was off at her all girl’s camp in Maine and (b) didn’t miss the prodigal because we were reminded of how nice it was to just hang with each other!

Folks with kids will likely appreciate that one. Let’s face it, we love them like crazy, but do enjoy those precious times when we can just wake up without hurling into the 400 meter dash.

As my Buddhist teacher used to tell me though, all things have a beginning and an end — and so it was for my husband and I as we meandered our way up to Portland, Maine for a leisurely couple of days before spending “visiting day” at camp, with all the other Mom’s and Dad’s who seemed to reflect us perfectly:  so very happy to see the wee darlings, but kind of sad to lose that little bit of us-ness.

By the time she was in our arms on Sunday morning, having mastered Pirelli horse care, sailing an FJ with two sails, singing a solo with her camp’s Glee, and working hard through three weeks of contemporary dance, we realized that we were firmly in family mode — and with perhaps a tinge of wistful longing, embraced the us-ness that is family with a delightful, wondrous and lovely 11-year old!