The Ache

It doesn’t really work, traveling. Yes I get to see my friends and family, but it just means I have to leave them. And the whole time I’m visiting, I miss home, my boyfriend, my friends, the mountains and Foro.

I got to see (in order): my father, my step-mother, my favorite friend from when we were young adults, my sister, my old friend from high school and his wife, my nephew, one of two of my old friends from grade school, my step-sister, the second of my two old friends from grade school and her husband, and my other nephew (step-nephew?) That’s a whole lot of visiting.

With all of them, it’s like a conversation that might take a whole lifetime to complete, and we just put it on pause until we’re in the same room again. I am so lucky to have such people in my life. They bring me so much, so many different perspectives and fresh eyes for seeing things.

But every reunion becomes a separation, and as good as it feels to see them again, it also hurts to leave. It’s the eternal pain of life, dukha or “suffering”, the attachment that we have to things and people. Life is about learning to be present where we are, and to not be attached to what came before and will come after.

And so I try. I sit here in the airport, waiting for my flight home. I’ve had a lovely lunch. I’m drinking a coffee (in a Starbucks, mostly because the music is better than by the gates. Ella Fitzgerald beats BeeGees anyday.) My partner sent me a photo of Foro yesterday. I’m happy to be seeing him soon, as I was happy to seeing my loved ones during my visit.

I am happy where I am. Time to go people watch and wait for my flight.