I recall being very amused by the ordained period of morning prescribed to the recently broken up, the first time I heard about it. Two weeks for every three months together? Something like that. I don’t believe we have such specific mourning periods for any other sort of relationship. We might have, in the past, but I don’t know about it, specifically. 

Is there an ordained period of time for a long stay away from work to start feeling normal again? A pay-period-per happy memory, perhaps? I don’t quite feel normal, in anycase. The Sunday scaries always struck me as kind of horrifying term for people wildly out of control of their own lives, and I can still say that because I don’t feel the Sunday scary’s. Not yet, anyways. 

I’ll be going to Burlington for the first time since Abby was too close to labor to risk being an hour away from her. I don’t think I’ll be doing much besides working, but it’ll still be a fascinating departure from what life has been lately. I wonder what it’ll be like the first time I travel for work, the first time I travel for fun? The latter feels almost impossibly distant, the former? Well, who knows? 

I have very little interest in leaving the homestead. Almost everything I feel like doing, or even aspire to doing, is an improvement or repair of this place. Any time spent away from here is time without those improvements, and time for those things in need of repair to get worse. I’ve got more on my list for this place than I could ever possibly accomplish, and that’s a great feeling made greater by the fact that it will some day be Roby’s place.