I kid. I've never been that person who stays in their pjs all day. I might stay in my bathing suit all day, but definitely not my pjs.
When I'm through sipping coffee I have big plans to take my book and my raft and float beside the dock. Hubs will tie a line to the raft so I don't float away because I honestly plan to be that chill. We have road tripped over 1100 miles in the past ten days and I'm ready for a day of doing nothing.
The first stop on our road trip was Annapolis. We lived there once upon a time or was it only yesterday? Our house sat in a cozy little cul-de-sac where kids gathered in the middle of the street to ride big wheels and bicycles and slap hockey pucks with too big sticks.
Where they drew houses made of chalk and played flashlight tag as cicada sang their goodnight song. Where mothers walked to the bus stop and could be counted on to pick up a sick child from school if you were out of reach. A sweet safe place to be a kid.
It doesn't seem that long ago, yet there we were Saturday before last watching one of those littles walk down the aisle to her waiting groom.
Fifteen years ago we moved to England. We pulled out of that cul-de-sac in a hired car, tissue in hand, while our neighbors stood in the driveway and waved goodbye til we were out of sight. It was raining and there were tears, I do remember that. Some of them were mine.
What were we doing?
We didn't know exactly but we buckled in to our airplane seats and the next chapter of our lives and soared on into the future. And these girls...
One already a Mrs. and a mama and one soon to be a Mrs.
Time presses on.
Hubs and I spent a few days with my mom on this most recent road trip. Something warm and familiar wraps itself around me as we pull into the drive. I marvel at the way I can walk through the front door and feel like I still live there. I pray I always remember the way home feels.
Technically I haven't called this place 'home' in some forty years. I know this for certain because I have a high school reunion happening next week. A reunion I won't be able to attend, but I do think about the number and the years and the friends all the same.
Forty years ago I graduated from high school? Can that be right? Didn't my soon-to-be Mrs. just graduate from high school? I guess not.
Time is funny.
Also bittersweet, slower than molasses, and faster than the speed of light. Mostly though, it's precious. Oh so very precious.
On my birthday I'll be grateful for the gift of another day. For girls who bloom where they're planted but keep their momma close in heart. For friends always near no matter how far the miles or years between. For family and home and memory.
For what's behind and what's ahead and all that glorious in between.