DIARY

Here, Now

The blood moon (and a Supermoon as well, I think) rising over the ocean last night.

If you’ve been following my Insta stories, you already know this, but surprise! I left the country. I’m in the Cayman Islands with my parents, because there’s been some health stuff going on with my family lately, and a couple of weeks ago they asked me to come with them on their trip, and so I used a bunch of miles and booked a ticket. I wanted (or needed, really) to come down and spend a few days diving with my dad and hanging out and talking with my mom.

And so this is where I am now.

I’m visiting them alone – no husband, no kids – and it was kind of amazing, the speed with which I reverted to being a fourteen-year-old slouched in the backseat of a car with a book in my face. When I travel with Kendrick and the kids, I virtually always play the role of the cruise director – we need to be in this place at this time, and in order to do that we need to leave at this time, and CAN EVERYBODY PLEASE PUT ON THEIR SHOES?

It is weird, being an adult (not to mention a married parent of two) traveling alone with her own parents; not having to make the rental car arrangements, or research local restaurants to figure out where to have dinner. It is weird, having my mom be the one yelling I SPEND HALF MY LIFE LOOKING FOR YOUR STUFF at my dad instead of me yelling it at Kendrick (apparently daily wallet loss is a Universal Guy Thing).

It is weird, sitting and reading a book in silence next to people who are sitting and reading in silence, too. Everyone else in my life seems to think this is antisocial, but it’s always been something my parents and I have done together. To me it’s always just felt calm.

If you’re an only child, I think you know what I’m getting at here: For years – decades – it was just me and them. And every once in awhile, it helps to just be us again for a minute, so we can remember that it’s not only our history together that matters; where we are right now matters, too.

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