re-entry

I've been home from being overseas for five days and I still feel like I got tossed off a carousel and dumped into an alternate universe.  Five weeks away, even with highs and lows during that five weeks, ill prepares one for re-entry into the reality of everyday life.  The sun is shining, I've been pootling around in the garden trying (in vain) to rescue the tomato plants from blight, and attacking weeds that threaten to envelop the house.  I am dipping back into work projects but wonder if working for a living is really necessary.  Today I flatly refused our self-imposed edict not to spend any money (since we now don't have any), and went to a French café for a pain au chocolat and an espresso.  It was a double and I feel good about it.  I took a photo of the flowers outside the café with my cellphone just to show what a lovely time I was having.

See?

Sweetpea has completely recovered from jetlag and is happily ensconced at an art daycamp for the week.  She seems to think that it is my job outside those hours to entertain her and arrange playdates.  I'm not sure how to take this but am resisting my role as social convenor.  Plus, after five weeks of eating pasta and gelato, very little in the way of milk, fruits and vegetables, plus buying souvenirs in every country we visited, she is acting just a little entitled.  When I told her for the 11th time in a row to one of her many requests yesterday that no does in fact mean no, she said "But children are great negotiators".  I blame my mother or mother-in-law for this, who I believe both announced this to her on separate occasions.

Sarcasm aside, re-entry is always confusing.  English hubby and I both are occasionally restless, wondering whether we should move houses (or countries), change jobs, pull up roots and just start fresh elsewhere.  Vacations don't help with that restlessness.  Most of the time we are more than content with our lot in life.  We live in a beautiful part of the world, have a house with a yard and a treehouse, families who love us and who like to visit and who we actually enjoy having visit, friends both local and far away who delight us.  We bury the restlessness and live in the moment, enjoying our slice of life.  But there's no getting away from the fact that wanderlust is in both of our souls, and that with our families on other sides of the continent and the ocean, we yearn for geographic closeness on occasion.

For the moment, I'll wait (just a tad impatiently) for the jetlag to loosen its grip, and for my itchy feet to relax and let my toes curl into the mud of this place, this time, this life.  But I'll allow my daydreams to drift through my subconscious and keep the door unlocked for what potential shifts may happen...