perspective

I've been spending the past couple of days with my family. We, like pretty much every family I know, have our quirks. Every visit usually consists of the same handful of events and conversations. I know I will eat too much - partially because of some mad cooking and baking skills I'm in the vacinity of and partially because it helps me to diffuse the stress a bit. And then in a few days I'll go home and everything will be back to normal.

But I was realizing last night that for all the anxiety and stress and sheer frustration of it all, being away from home is so good for me. I'm separated from my normal routine by hundreds of miles.

It almost feels like I'm in a plane that's just taken off. And for those first several minutes, as the plane climbs into the air, I can see the roads for the tiny grids that they are. Hundreds of acres of land are little checker block-sized squares.

And from this distance the grid of this word and that word, this action and that action, takes its place in the grand scheme of things. I find the stuff that worries me is not the end of the world, by any stretch of the imagination, even if it seemed like the biggest deal just a couple days ago. It's part of the road I'm on. And I can accept that, because I know that (1) I can't do anything to take back what I did or said and (2) it's all going to work out in the end. It may hurt or be hard on the way there, but it will end.

I just hope I can keep this outrageously healthy attitude when I get home.