Alas, we are home again.

It was with heavy hearts that we locked up Ann's (David's mom) beautiful house in Park City and caught a 3hour flight back to the moisture-laden air of our hometown of Houston. Not because we dislike our home, but because along with the end of our easy going vacation comes the looming bummer that school will begin again in just a few more weeks. Margo has decided that we need to move to Park City, where the kids get out of school at 2:30 (1:00, if they have promise as an athlete or another valuable interest) Monday through Thursday and noon on Fridays. I have to say, she nearly has me convinced.

Every time we go on vacation, we come back aching to pack up our belongings and move to where ever we've been. Years ago we visited our friend Peter on Kauai, and for those of you who know David, you can easily imagine, he was ready to set up a household in any old abandoned lean-to on the beach. David was shocked to find out Peter didn't make it to the beach very often. In so many words, Peter smartly explained that vacation is vacation wherever you decide to go. When you live in Hawaii (or Fiji or Provence) you still have to get up and go to work. You have to live wherever you live.

So... every time we come back home I am fired up and on a mission to make our home life feel like a vacation. I begin searching for the formula to simplify the way we live and to inspire us to boil down our wants and needs to their most basic elements for deep examination and pursuit. Our first day back, David rises from bed and marches off to the office, braced for what is surely coming as punishment for exhaling for a few days with his family. I spend that very same day on vacation afterglow. I throw away processed food from the pantry, clean out my side of the closet and contemplate our new and improved future of the simple and peaceful life. The whole family will do puzzles and play card games while David and I spend heaping amounts of time sipping wine, take long walks while holding hands and finishing full conversations. Over the years David has learned he must pace himself on his return to work. He used to try to conquer it all on day one, causing him to vow to never ever take another day off. Luckily, he loves to play hard so he couldn’t realistically survive quitting taking breaks. Now it takes him about three days to wrap himself back up into his familiar form of a knot. I am always heartbroken when he quickly and predictably succumbs to the stresses of running a business. Heartbroken to give custody back to that relentless daily grind whilst the kids and I climb into the back seat. As a coping mechanism, I spend the next few days pretending that everything is perfectly light and freewheeling (I call this my Cheerleader Mode). David would disagree that I support his primal need to ride, but when Saturday arrives I genuinely encourage him to take his 3hour bike ride but I do forbid him to come back with his brow furrowed. Riding always makes him feel better and brings back the guy with whom I fell in love. By the time next Monday rolls around the whole family will revert to the pre-vacation way, all of us operating side by side but not together. Time will pass quickly, we will again live for Saturdays, dread Mondays and even before it resumes, begin to count the days until school holidays.

As I contemplate what it is I want and need in my life, it is very clear to me that the answer is to be on full time vacation. And thus, even though today should be afterglow day, I am feeling wrestles and kicking myself for not buying more lottery tickets or being the favorite niece of a long lost and extremely wealthy aunt. Sigh.