Away

I'm in Pennsylvania now, visiting with the grandkids who make this state home. My husband and I figure we need to make the trip as often as we can while were able because we know the day will most probably come when we no longer want to deal with the traffic in the metro area in order to get off Long Island. It's the single worst thing about living where we live - its too hard to get off Long Island unless we're heading north and can take the ferry.

We feel very much at home in our daughter's house, where we have a nice guest room and comfortable bed. I don't know whether it makes a difference if you're visiting a daughter and son-in-law or a son and daughter-in-law because I've never experienced the latter. I suspect it might since relationships with the woman of the house are key and our own children probably put up with our idiosyncrasies better than others would. But I'm lucky enough to have three of my children living in East Hampton, so this is the only one we have to travel to see. Fortunately they make the trip north as often as we make the one south, so we see them frequently.

On this trip my husband will leave me behind when he heads back to Long Island and he'll come back for me next weekend. It will give me lots of time with my daughter and the grandchildren, but it makes me sad at the same time to be away from him for the week. In the past when I've done this I didn't notice it so much during the day, but climbing into bed at night made the absence more apparent. I don't actually mind having the smaller bed all to myself, but I miss his presence in conversation and just in the fact of being there. After thirty-seven years of marriage, one becomes used to certain things and falling asleep with someone else is one of them. We are creatures of habit, after all, and some changes take time to adjust to.

Just when I begin to get used to being alone in the bed, he'll be back again. And the adjustment will begin again.