Making the Trip

So now, it's separate vacations.  A promised Christmas present birding trip to eastern Oregon was precluded by Job #1.

Our usual time of year for these trips is January...but the Universe must have known that we were both going to be debilitated by the flu for most of that month, so we had decided on March.  Way back in December, we chose March.  

Come time to make the arrangements, and suddenly, March was not okay.  All kinds of work shit--suddenly takes place in March!  And if we'd chosen April I'm sure THAT is when the work shit would have occurred.  THAT is how it goes.  That is how it has gone since 1994.  I think I have FINALLY made my peace with it.

We, of course, had to have The Argument about it.  I asked him point blank if he really wanted to make this trip.  Yes or no.  His answer, "Well, we said we were going to go..."  I'll take that as a "no."

His final answer was, "If you really want to go and waiting (until what...hell freezes over?) is not an option, then you should go."

Ok.  I bloody well will.

And HE will be going back to Illinois to visit his family in August. 

But, as I said in my last post, I don't want to make decisions based on, "Fuck you, then!" anymore.  I want to choose to take action in the light of peace and joy.  That is what I'm endeavoring to do here.  Making a choice to do something I REALLY want to do, which happens also to be something I know he does NOT want to do.  And that is okay. 

Today, I made my hotel reservations, and got new tires put on the van.  Went to Bi-Mart and picked up a bunch of little travel-size stuff for the trip.  I'm really going to do this!

I get a little wistful when I think that I would like SOMEone to share my trip with...someone who gets excited about the same things I do.   Husband is not that person.  And when I try to imagine what it would look like to make new friends at this late stage in my introverted life...I just can't wrap my head around that.  A sad little voice keeps whining in my ear, "But won't it be lonely, out there by yourself...no one to share it with?"

I'll let you (and the whiney little voice) in on a secret. 

There are times when I DO feel lonely, when the weather is bad and I'm stuck at home trying half-heartedly to play "domestic engineer"...housecleaning has never been at the top of my list of favorite activities...(or even anything I would choose to do without a gun pointed to my head.)  But the past month or so, I've been busting away from that ball and chain, and spending more and more time out in nature with my camera, just me.  

A couple of weeks ago, I spent an incredible afternoon with a huge flock of snow geese, Sandhill cranes and various ducks.  They came up to the road so close I could almost touch them.   The cacophony was magical.  I have not felt so happy, so loved, so cherished...so much a part of something larger than myself...for a VERY long time. 

So...  Lonely?  Ha!  I don't think so.