Home soon...

Home soon... tomorrow afternoon.
Long trip. Good retreat (I think) in Oregon... new friends, new ties to the west coast.

It strikes me as odd that I've not had "the need" to post while I've been away. For one, not much opportunity (until I reached my son's house) and for two... I'm now on what's known in the convent as family time. Not rest and retreat, (our equivalent of vacation) because as everyone knows, family time is not a retreat, neither is it restful. Those exact words from another nun were perplexing to me at first, although I laughed at the time. But now I get her drift. Life in the convent is different enough to make life in the outside world seem pretty weird.

It's been a weird visit. I'm sure some of it's the nun-thing, some the time difference (3 hours), some the fact that even though both my son and daughter-in-law took vacation time to be off, my son still pretty much sticks to his night shift schedule, and my daughter-in-law spends a lot of her time online while watching TV. That's not a problem. I don't need to be entertained. I have my knitting and my son gave me a good book to read. It's something else.

Nobody wants to make a decision about what we should do, where we should go, what TV we should watch... and once a decision is somewhat made, then there's a whole lot of resistance and/or argument about it. I'm so used to stating my position on an issue and then going with the consensus, that I have no understanding of the nuances of "I don't care what we do" to mean "I don't want to do that." Or... "I will make you pay if we do that." It's disorienting. I'm bouncing along thinking everything is just fine and then notice somebody's unhappy. Or so it seems.

These kids snap at each other. I have no doubt there's true affection between them, I've seen that as well, but the whole kindness for its own sake thing has eluded them. It's been so long since I've been in a relationship with just one other person, I can't remember if I was the same way. Probably... the apple doesn't fall far.

The dog seems to like me better this time.