Trips like you to look forward to them.  They mark themselves on your calendar and watch you X over the days just ahead of them.  Trips promise sleep, adventure, connection, views, experiences, food, and memories.  They lure you toward them, mostly because of the people, your favorites, they promise.  You’d run their way if you didn’t have work, obligations, and all the regulars to X over first.

Trips are careful to help you prepare.  They remind you to tuck the park pass in, arrange for puppy care, fill the tank.  A trip usually includes a few rendezvous calls and texts, your favorite part because of those same favorites it promises.

Then, the trip arrives. It says, it’s time.  Let’s go.  No more X’s.  All the X’s are marked.  Yippy!

The trip.  It’s such a diversion, just what you need.  It’s full of life, air, new breaths, just what you need.   It’s full of refreshed relations, catch-ups, new words and topics and learning.   It’s all what you need.

But trips are bad at endings.  They don’t mark or promise or prepare.  They don’t ease you back into the regulars.  They plop you down in your before-trip life, your alone life, your now-what-do-I-do life, and… disappear.   Suddenly the favorites are gone, the calendar is blank, the tank is empty.  They don’t even stick around to hold you while you cry.  They’re trips.  They only know how to enjoy then slap you on the back with an “attaboy.”  So harsh.

You’re the big girl.  You can say no to trips.  They will leave you alone.  Or you can enjoy the enjoy and know that once you’re home, with your new memory, another trip with your favorites will invite you before long.   Maybe someday their endings won’t be quite so harsh.