Hitting the Road

A couple of Thanksgivings ago, I took off on a solo road trip to see my family in Tennessee. Well, solo in the human department ... I had three wiener dogs with me as traveling companions. And quite honestly, they may have been the best traveling buddies I've ever had. We stopped when I wanted to stop; we listened to the music I wanted to listen to; we kept the temperature in the car as hot or cold as I wanted it to be. It was the first time I had ever driven to Tennessee alone, and it was an awesome road trip ... completely and totally awesome.

As wonderful as my solo driving experience was, my visit to the place of my roots that year was one for the record books in many ways. I stayed in a hotel for an entire week, ate out for every meal, spent a ton of time with my family, swam in the hotel pool every day, went for long walks with the dogs at a nearby park, enjoyed the warmth of November in Tennessee, and reconnected with several friends from my youth that I had not seen in many years. I had received my diabetes diagnosis only a month earlier, so it was good for me to spend time with people who loved me deeply and offered a ton of encouragement for me to work hard to get healthy. Looking back now, I realize that the first couple of months after being diagnosed were extremely critical in my attempt to get my diabetes under control, and my trip home may well have been a pivotal turning point in my determination to stay strong and keep on trying.

I haven't traveled back to Tennessee since that trip, but I intend to go this year, probably over Thanksgiving once again. I've been missing home a lot lately ... not sure why really, but I miss my family and friends from there a great deal right now. In fact, I had a real crying jag about it last weekend, sitting out on my deck sobbing my heart out over being alone and missing my home. I've lived away for 21 years, so it is more than a bit perplexing to me as to why I'm feeling so homesick at this point in my life.

Last night, I ventured out to take Ollie for a short walk, the first one since my shoulder fiasco of last week. We were walking slowly, or at least I was walking slowly ... the wild wiener dog was very excited to be out on the trail again and was running back and forth like a crazed furry maniac. We had been walking for about 10 minutes when my phone rang and I saw that it was an old friend from Tennessee whom I hadn't talked to in quite a long while. After chatting for a bit, she told me that she was coming to St. Louis this week to attend a seminar for her job and asked if I would like to drive over for the weekend and hang out. We discussed the logistics of the trip, and I told her if my shoulder would cooperate, I'd plan on seeing her Friday evening.

Walking outside to play a little left-handed Frisbee with Julie after I got home from walking Ollie, my mind kept chanting over and over ... road trip, road trip, road trip ... I'd really like to take a road trip, and even more, I'd like to spend some time with my friend. It would be almost like going home, I thought to myself ... a little taste of home anyway, and I'd only have to travel four hours. I woke early this morning with less pain in my shoulder than I've had for the last several days, still painful, but at least approaching the level that it was before the cortisone injection. I couldn't get back to sleep, though, so here I sit at the keyboard at an hour when I should be snoozing ... thinking about home and road trips and friends and stuff ... big life stuff, I suppose.

Sometimes I can't help but wonder about things that just seem to come from nowhere ... things I don't expect or anticipate. Sometimes I think God puts situations along my path to help me see who I really am and what I'm made of ... or maybe Who I'm made of is more accurate. Sometimes it's easier to hear God out on the open road ... away from the distractions of everyday life.

Maybe hitting the road this weekend is just what this old gal needs ... maybe indeed.