Learning to love the rain

When I was 16, my mom and I took a trip to Bermuda during my high school spring break. We had high hopes for the trip (me in my downplayed 'too-cool' teenage angst way, and Mom in her all out bubbly 'OMG bonding time' way); but we realized- much too late- that we were hitting Bermuda during the height of their rainy season. And, it poured the entire time! We made the best of it though, even renting scooters to cruise around the island- hurricane strength winds and a bit of a torrential downpour weren't going to stop us.

And we did have a good time (definitely the stuff that stories are made of), but I vividly remember lying in bed each night planning a way to get us to a sunny destination. There had to be a way. My plans ranged from chartering a plane to Miami (which was obviously realistic) to hopping a cruise boat headed south. (I can just see the headline now: "Mother/daughter stow-aways caught on luxury liner".) In the end, of course, we stayed in soggy Bermuda the entire time. Despite my elaborate fantasies, our reality was rainy Bermuda and that's where we stayed.

Fast forward 18 years, and I again find myself irrationally fantasizing about 'sunnier shores'. Although I truly live a charmed life (and I really do!), it's not much of a secret that I often find myself homesick for my family and friends back home (and around the country). And after my Mom's visit last week, I spent an hour online looking for a house in Maryland for her. For that hour, it was totally possible- a la the chartered plane to Miami. She could spend every other week here, gallivanting down the coast to spend time with me and her granddaughters, then jet-setting back up to live her life for a couple weeks before coming back down. (Her job would obviously cooperate.) I even looked into building a guest house (on our .5 acre property). Just like Bermuda, I truly believed there had to be a way that my girls could have their family in their everyday life.

Just like Bermuda though, this is nothing more than fantasy. The reality is I moved away, and many of the people I would choose to be in my everyday life are at least 5 hours away from me. I can daydream about what it would be like to have family close by, (and in the daydream, it's pretty awesome), but I have to come to terms with the fact that it's just not in the cards.

So... what can you do but make the best of it? We surround ourselves with the people we love here. (And we really do have an amazing group of family and friends here.) We visit home often. We have lots of visitors, and we send lots of pictures and make lots of phone calls...

In the end, we scooter in the rain because, although there is better weather out there, there are definitely worse things than getting a little bit wet. It's all about enjoying the adventure that lies before us- torrential winds and all.