Another Day in Paradise

Oh how I love rum drinks when I’m sitting under a beach umbrella, surrounded by beautiful people. I’m winding down what was essentially a daytrip to paradise – killing that last hour before returning the rental car -- and find myself wishing I could stay longer. But predictions of bad weather back home and a full week next week are pushing me toward my scheduled departure time.

When I was a single girl, I loved to travel solo. I went around the world and back again, often only with my camera and a phrase book or map to keep me company. All that changed when I met my husband. When we started dating, I burned up all my frequent flyer miles going back and forth to the small town. Then after I moved to be with him and started traveling for work, being away from home got less urgent. It wasn’t long before I realized that I liked being home -- a place that, if I’d lived there alone, I wouldn’t have been able to stand for a minute.

This was an amazing revelation to me -- I grew up in small town, in a house full of people who were not curious about the wide world. I don’t know what happened to me, but my feet were always itchy. From the minute I learned to read, I became an armchair explorer. With my face buried in a book, I went everywhere, saw everything – anything to get as far away from “here” as I could. New York City, Paris, Katmandu, it didn’t matter. It could have been Ohio, as long as it wasn’t home. The whole time I lived in the big city, as full as it was of exciting and eclectic things to do, I always wanted to be someplace else.

Now when I’m gone, I find myself either counting the minutes til I board the plane for home or else wishing my husband were with me. And when I’m with him on the road, I don’t take the chances I used to – no more climbing up sheer cliffs to get the perfect sunset shot or lurking in back alleys to catch local kids at play on film. I don’t look for the most colorful watering holes or eat street food or even wander without a plan. He’s turned me into a responsible homebody!

So it’s odd to find myself with a spare moment, alone, in a remote location, wishing I had a little more time to myself. Not really longing for an extended solo adventure vacation, but wanting to sit here long enough for the waiter to come around again with another round of drinks before I have to leave for the airport.


The Wife Who Knows