home

(ava at the friend's farm we visited last week)

we are home and I am somewhere between relieved and melancholy. and yes, exhausted. I'm still reeling from all that we managed to pack into ten short days. so many people/places/things and so much fun and now here's the part where I talk about how ridiculously tired I am (yawn). there's really no good jumping off place with all of it (lest I sound like I'm standing in front of a third grade classroom reading, 'what I did I on my summer vacation' with all the 'we went here' and 'then we went there' and 'we saw that').

and now it has happened. everytime I come home from a trip, it happens. the first day back, I experience a surge of energy so superhuman that I am able to heave trucks into the air (or at the very least, unpack the suitcases). from the minute we walk in the door (which is usually in the middle of the night and this time we pulled into atlanta around 3 in the morning), I am off and running. nevermind I was fighting deep sleep just twenty minutes earlier. the moment we get the kids into their beds, I am going through mail, inspecting the house, mentally constructing the swiftest of game plans. the first day home, I am a machine. I attack the suitcases, cleaning the house as I go. 'to do' lists are promptly made up and I am swimming in optimism. then somewhere around day three, it hits me-- out of nowhere and I'm down for the count. I move in slooooooow motion and often catch myself staring into space. it's the kind of staring that you have to be jolted out of or everything turns blurry and your eyes begin to water. I'm extra-schlumpy and the one suitcase that has not yet been unpacked will inevitably sit for days. I will be living out of my own suitcase in my own home for many, many days. it's a wonder I'm even able to write.

still, there was the moment last week when I brought some belts home for ava from the thrift store. for some reason, she's been on a belt kick lately. when I pulled the three striped belts from the bag to show her, she immediately screamed,

"BELTS! JUST WHAT I ALWAYS WANTED FOR ALL OF MY LIFE!"

something about that makes me want to get dressed and face the day.