I see it now.

Okay-I am figuring it out, and this, too, shall pass.

That used to be my mantra. I have since discovered others, but I think I need to go back to revisit the oldies and goodies.

I was recalling on Monday night after my prayer group when the last time was that I had driven all the way to the store, gotten to the parking lot and decided, to hell with it, I am NOT going to go shopping no matter how much we need food because I JUST DON'T WANT TO SEE ANYBODY OR DO ANYTHING so I just went home...which is precisely what occurred on Monday night.

This has happened twice before in my life--not incidences of not wanting to shop but a personal closure after two major events, those being my father's death 6 years ago and my return to the US after living for 3 years in Japan 9 years ago. Events after which I closed myself off from the world for a matter of months, with the exception of going to work or seeing my family, and could have cared less about what was going on around me.

I think that it is a good thing I have children because they force me to get out of the house even if I don't want to...preschool will continue, the springtime events go on and, whether I like it or not, I know that it is not fair to them to shut myself up at home...even though we do spend a lot of time outside working on the yard. I just have no desire to interact with anybody, meet new people or have human conversation except with my closest friends. I am so exhausted that I went to sleep before 9 last night after having taken a nap during the afternoon--and man, sleep is a wonderful escape!

But I think I see it now...and this must just be my body's way of dealing, of healing. Both of these events were followed by a major trip: about 6 months or so after Dad died I went to Machu Picchu, Cuzco and Lake Titicaca. 6 months after moving back to the US following Japan I left Oregon for New Orleans (yet another foreign country) for grad school, although there was a trip to Ecuador in there 2 days after I got back from Japan.

And I have another to South America awaiting me in the distance--it can only help, as it has in the past, to shift my mind away from the past, mend, and start anew.