Random thoughts of an aging traveler.

by

Once upon a time, I loved to pack a bag and travel anywhere, any time.

I drove through different states, lived in several from 6 months to 7 years at a time and called it “extended vacations.”

The first thing I’d do when I moved to a new place was get into my car and drive.  By the time my husband needed to go anywhere, I knew the lay of the land — and he was impressed.

But that was husband number 2, and sometimes number 3.

Now?

I’m freezing!

Unfortunately, while I’m freezing everyone else is sweltering.

Home is where my room is 85F, my computer screen is 32″ and my politics are acceptable.  Home is where I write every chance I get.  But right now I don’t feel like writing.

I miss my cats sleeping next to my computer monitor or on my desk.  I miss the dogs snoring on my bed as I write.

My blood his here — in one house.  All of them are strangers.

It has nothing to do with good or bad, right or wrong.  It has everything to do with attitude.  My attitude. They’re all trying to get along and all I want to do is scream, “I don’t belong here!”

I don’t like having migraines, or the sharp pain of a light turned on without warning.  I don’t like making my family feel bad because I’m not normal.

And I hate making them change so that I can be comfortable.  They don’t deserve that.

I’m presently in my granddaughter’s bedroom.  She’s visiting relatives and graciously allowed me to strip all the blankets off her bed so that I could sleep on the floor.

Once, I was pliable, able to take a new environment in stride.  Now, I look outside at a place as foreign to me as Mars.

I want to go for a walk.  But it’s cold — too cold…colder than inside a house that I have made too warm for others who struggle to understand what happened to the woman they once knew.

I just finished watching Beauty and the Beast with my granddaughter– while petting a dog.  The movie is about an hour longer than necessary.  But I love being with my granddaughter, who unabashedly says what she’s thinking.

At one point in the movie she said, “Belle likes books because there was no technology back then.”

That’s me — the illustrated book drowning in a sea of technology.

I loved to travel, when there was no GPS.  Now most people are afraid to leave home without their cell phone.

Now that a “letter” (aka email) can be sent from one side of the world to another in seconds, I find it comforting to type out my emotions rather than face them at the dinner table.

Once upon a time, I loved to pack a bag and travel anywhere, any time.

Now all I want to do is find a way to be comfortable while refraining from making everyone else uncomfortable.

That, unfortunately, may be as easy as turning steel into play dough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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