Coming home

Life can be hectic. My wife's blog, Navigating Hectivity, is a great catalog of all the things we have to deal with as adults.

Work, school, chores and projects at home can be, in combination, quite a challenge. Sometimes, quite overwhelming.

As such, we hadn't, for some years, had the chance or ability to skip out for a weekend alone together.

Tight finances and busy schedules sometimes preclude romantic getaways.

We do our best, from time to time, to use our room or screened in porch as refuges from business, just to reconnect a little.

But, both of us longed for a bit more, knowing it was very unlikely to happen any time soon.

When we received a long awaited invitation to our niece's destination wedding, things worked out that it would be the two of us who got to go.

When future exciting events are on my calendar, I just put my head down and focus on the current activities. I try to not get so excited, because it distracts me and makes me anxious.

But, as time does go on, it was time to begin packing and readying the house for our departure.

Short of a weekend trip to visit my brother for his birthday, late last year and our usual summer family reunion, I hadn't been out of state very much in a few years.

Travel is always stressful for me.

But we departed and after a long day, found ourselves nestled high in the Rockies.

We soon found that it was an agreeable place. And even more, found out how lovely it was to be together, just the two of us.

Yes, we did mingle with family and make new friends and that was wonderful. But the time we spent together was magical.

We took long walks, ate wonderful food, rested and read quietly, or watched cable TV (a reality that reassured us our choice to cancel cable was the right one) and just hung out.

The wedding events, like the pre wedding cookout and the rehearsal dinner and the wedding and reception were beautiful and fun and wonderful.

They were, after all, our reason for going.

But still, we managed to reconnect, find our romance and friendship still intact, and enjoy some much needed time as just a couple in love.

Our journey home was long and exhausting. We got back early enough to inject a little normalcy into the evening: crashing on the couch and watching our favorite crime drama on Netflix (with no commercials or channel flipping necessary) and snuggling with our furry family members.

But now, the new week looms large. Checklists replace plane tickets and wedding events. Deadlines replace departure and landing times.

Chores and projects put on hold for the weekend away, are now once again in focus.

Autumn is here and it is time to begin to focus on the coming winter months.

We are once again parents and adult children. We take up again the mantles of CEO, Grounds keeper, CFO, Teen Librarian and Web Facilitator.

Morning routines replace snuggling and watching dawn break in the high places and adventuring for a place to eat breakfast.

We will both miss our proximity to our beloved nieces and their wonderful, beautiful personalities. We will miss our new friends and family.

We will greatly miss the beauty of life at high altitude (if not the shortness of breath or the potency of adult beverages up there) and the quaking aspens and lodgepole pines and the black beaked magpies.

We will never forget our time there, reconnecting, falling in love again, bonding, and experiencing the glorious beauty of a new love and newly spoken vows.

Now it's time to get back to our regularly scheduled programming. Time to catch up on laundry and laundry lists at home and at work.

Life is good. Routine is good. There is a distinct earthy pleasure to be had in the mundane everyday things.

But behind the scenes, are two people who feel renewed, refreshed and reconnected.

As the jet lag and the oxygen content normalize and return to normal, it is good to know that we both came home knowing that we are much stronger, more deeply in love and closer in so many wonderful ways.