Travels

I leave tomorrow on my travels and I'm feeling kind of nostalgic, or I'm not sure exactly what. Like serious, pensive, thoughtful. I'm leaving for 3 months and it's the longest my Honey and I have ever been apart. Still, it's  all good. 6 weeks at Crossroads in Antigua where I worked for 2 1/2 years (before moving to Italy) to help out while one of their administrators is on leave. I love it there, the work and the staff and reconnecting with old friends.

Then, for 2 months around Christmas, to Trinidad where my daughter, her husband and two children live. My Honey joins me there to give us a month together. Hooray! A nice long stretch of family time is balm to my spirit, for sure. Interacting with my grandchildren in their environment gives me a whole new appreciation for them. It cements our relationship as well since I get to know them in their own home and appreciate how it shapes them.

Then the final stretch in FL for a half marathon. Unique this time is that my daughter is running in the same half-marathon as me. This is a first for us and we'll be joined by a couple of my nieces for yet another first. Last year I ran the full marathon by myself. It's the National Breast Cancer Marathon in Jacksonville, Florida on February 13 and the last 10 days of my journey. Other nieces, their children and my sister-in-law will be there to cheer us on so it will be great family fun.

So, I'm excited about each phase of my journey and looking forward to each for different reasons. The work, because I love and believe in it and know that treatment changes lives. Family time because this is where my heart is happiest and my roots are deepest and the sprouts are growing and I get to tend/love them to fuller life. And the running because I can when others can't, and I feel good doing it and it makes my body healthier so I can live longer and it shows another choice for how to age to my daughter and granddaughter and nieces.

But still, there's this other indefinable feeling going on. I guess sometimes we're mysteries even to ourselves until clarity happens. Maybe it's the thought, not yet reality, of missing John. I don't know. I'll keep in touch.