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| One of many get-togethers organized during our brief time at home. |
How can I describe our first annual home leave, other than to say "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times." It was: major jet lag, mild nausea, exhausted days and sleepless nights; hopping from Dallas to Odessa to Austin to Houston, with constant packing and unpacking; greeting friends and loved ones ecstatically one moment, then saying tearful goodbyes the next; trying to divide our time evenly between parents and in-laws, and between each of the siblings and grandparents, so that no one got their nose out of joint; eating, eating, and more eating; catching up on doctors, dentists and allergists; shopping, shopping, and more shopping, while trying to guess what all we might need over the next year, in a place we'd never been to and which we knew nothing about, then trying to fit it all into our designated number of bags while keeping under the allotted weight.
Mostly, it was wondering how things could have possibly changed so much, in the short time that we were away? For instance, when did all the normal foods in the grocery stores get replaced by all these "convenience" products, and when did all the traditional beauticians get replaced by young blow-gun-wielding "stylists" who didn't have a clue how to handle my curly hair? (see photo above)
It was terrible. It was wonderful. We thought it would never end. It was over in the blink of an eye.
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