AnotherMondayforMali: The Long and the Short of It November 24, 2014
Posted by indigobunting in Uncategorized.trackback
In ~48 hours, I will be either driving 7 hours south on Wednesday, spending Thanksgiving with relatives on Thursday, driving 2 hours further south and back on Friday to see more relatives, then driving 7 hours home on Saturday so that Tim can pack and get to the airport on Monday morning to depart on another business trip. Or not. Every one of those plans is in peril: Tim is sick. I may be getting sick. It might snow or wintrymix on Wednesday, one of the worst travel days ever. The business trip, thanks to typical office snafu, may be canceled.
I don’t want to have to cancel. And I don’t want to go for Christmas instead. I’m feeling guilty about the relatives thing. And I will genuinely miss them.
I will not voluntarily drive in bad weather.
I will not be able to sleep in a double bed with someone else if one or both of us is sick.
Some days it is good to give thanks for long distances; others, for short ones.
Route 153 
Such a good last line. Christmas is the big travel time here, and whenever the whole country is on the move there will be risks, but at least the weather is never an issue. Still, every few years we choose to skip the family stuff and do something just for ourselves. Mind you, that means we have to skip the country to avoid familial complaints!
Guilt and relatives. Sometimes I wonder if they ever feel guilty about the same things.
A friend used to tell his grandmother, “The road’s the same length in both directions!” Why do I imagine I am the only one feeling guilty?
Because that’s what we do.