Back to Real Life

Four glorious days. That is how long my bucket filling girl’s trip to Port Aransas, TX lasted. In the North Padre Island area.

My last girl’s trip was to Sedona, AZ in February, 2020. Right before Covid-19 shut down the world. We had no idea what was to come when we were enjoying the peacefulness of Sedona.

We scheduled the 2021 girl’s trip for August. We thought the Covid-19 nightmare was coming to an end and that we were safe scheduling this trip. We were not expecting the world to still be struggling from the ongoing spread.

As I packed and made the final plans I wondered if this was a good time to take a few days away. Is there ever a good time?

Travis is being weaned from Abilify, a medication that has offered some support and smoothed out his rough edges. At the same time the psychiatrist added a new medication. We have been seeing the resulting struggle with his mental health.

Travis has had a few “non mom-approved friends” hanging around his house.

Travis’s dog needed to once again be picked up from his house because she decided to play with a neighbor’s chicken without realizing it wasn’t a toy. Or another dog. It didn’t end well. Pretty sure chickens aren’t allowed in the mobile home park.

Tracy assured me that I needed to go and he would cover the Travis stuff.

I didn’t tell Travis that I would be on a trip. For a couple of reasons. I didn’t want to stress him out. And I didn’t want the “non-approved friends” to know I wasn’t around. I stop by whenever I’m in town, so I wanted them to think I might stop by at any time.

Tracy kept in touch with Travis and stopped by his house a couple of times. He tried to keep Travis’s calls to me to a minimum by telling him that I was spending some much needed time with my girlfriends.

At my end, I kept my phone on vibrate the entire four days and left it at the rental house when we weren’t there.

I did talk with Travis a couple of times. I had a few missed calls, but he never left a message and called Tracy when he couldn’t reach me.

The girls and I had a blast. The house rental came with a free golf cart and we buzzed around town and the beach with it. We enjoyed our long rides on the beach. We had planned to take a surfing lesson, but Hurricane Grace was wreaking havoc, even though it was 500 miles away. Each day we were there was a red flag ocean day, so our lessons were canceled.

We had several leisurely meals at restaurants, did some shopping and sight seeing.

Most of all, we did a lot of laughing. Which is so good for my soul.

I traveled home today. Tracy had to fly to Las Vegas this morning for business. My phone was on airplane mode most of the day. Tracy couldn’t be reached as he traveled and had meetings today.

Travis’s new Xbox X crashed. He couldn’t reach either of us. When that happens he loses it. I had very limited time to check my phone between flights as we had a tight connection time. I received a couple of texts from one of Travis’s tribe members to please call her.

I texted Tracy that I had to turn my phone off, but to check on Travis if he got a chance.

And then I began to worry. And just like that, I was back to real life.

As soon as we landed and started our drive home, I began to text Travis. I didn’t want to call, because my friend was driving us home, and I didn’t want her vacation to end with having to listen to my side of a Travis conversation.

After a few texts he asked if he could please call.

When he called he told me everything that went wrong while I was gone. I talked him through each issue and reminded him that tomorrow is Travis Tuesday. I told him we could work through each issue together and in person then.

I also had a text from a family member. When Travis cannot reach us, he begins to call others. He keeps calling numbers until he gets a person on the other line. Thank you to this family member who took the call and talked him down. And for getting in touch with me because you were concerned about Travis’s well-being.

After that conversation, assuring the family member that we are on top of the concerns for Travis’s well-being, I started writing.

So guess what? This is it for tonight.

Thank you to my tribe. Not just the ones that spent the last four days with me. All of you that have my back. All of you that support me in a million different ways. I couldn’t be me without you!

“You know that feeling you get after vacation when you’re just so happy to get back to reality? Me either.” - Author Unknown