Transition - Coming Home

September 26

We got back to North Carolina last evening and it is so different to be here.  Wisconsin was cool, fall was in the air.  Here it is warm and humid, back to shorts and a tee shirt.  On Friday I had a fire in the fireplace, here we need air conditioning.  It is amazing how things can change in one day.

The trip was relaxing; a lovely drive through farmland at the harvest and big city skylines, but the highlight of this drive is always the mountains.  I love the mountains with their strength and ruggedness, their shades of blue and green and brown.  The colors are barely starting to turn, but there were bright splashes of red, orange and yellow.  It was a bright sunny day for most of the trip, the perfect day for a drive.

As we entered North Carolina the sky became dark and then the rain came down matching my mood as we got closer to home.  I didn’t want to come back.  I already miss my friends and my home on Lake Michigan.  The fun and the vacation feeling of the last month was fading fast as we got closer to Mooresville.  I want to be sitting on the porch looking out at the eagles, not getting ready to do laundry and clean the house. 

The reentry from vacation back to reality can cause some unexpected tension.  Going from a time when the biggest responsibility is getting somewhere in time for dinner back to the responsibilities of running a house and having an organized life intrude on the peace and tranquility we came to expect during vacation life.  This can be stressful and in our case it led to a fight.

I’m not going to go into the details of the disagreements, but let me say that I felt taken advantage of while Gary felt unappreciated and insulted.  Both of us took things personally when that should not have been the case.   The positive feelings of the last weeks dissolved into anger and hurt.  Why does this happen?  Why does the re-entry shock bring out the worst in us?

My lesson here is that we were tired from the trip and ambivalent about returning home.  I loved the relaxed times with friends, the time the two of us had without the reality of life interfering.  On the other hand, I wanted to reconnect with my new friends in the south and looked forward to visits from northern friends and family from during the month of October.  It also was the transition from it just being the two of us to the added complication of Gary’s 28 year old son who lives with us.  There is a huge difference when a third person comes into the picture.  Being tired and newly in transition does not make for a good time to have discussions about conflicts and irritants.  We are hyper-sensitive and need to stay in more neutral territory until life settles in. 

The advice here is to enjoy the moment and then, give yourself enough time to make transitions and intentionally look at the positive side as you move into the next steps.   This is especially true when moving from a very stress free time into one where you have responsibilities and demands.  It is easy to get stuck on what is wrong when you’d rather be somewhere else, perhaps it is better for us to make a decision to look at what is right and celebrate that as we look at where we are, not where we've been.  Keeping our focus on those things that are good has another payoff, being positive is better for us on all kinds of levels.

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