At long last, we arrived in Vermont at 3 am on Friday; but, by 9 am on Sunday, we'll be headed south to New Jersey via a visit with the Brooklyn in-laws. We will have had 54 hours in verdant Vermont before heading back to a place to which I have mixed feelings returning.
On the one hand, I am excited to see our former NJ neighbors and friends, and I am extra-excited for Petunia to see her old schoolmates. But on the other hand, I really don't want to see how the new owners of our fomer home have completely bastardized our house. For the first year we lived in it, I called it the Stein's house, because we bought it from the Stein family -- but then I brought baby Dash home to it, and it became our house forever. Yet, of course, it's not our house anymore, and some people who were a real hassle to deal with bought it and changed it immensely. I think that Dash is probably going to have a world-class freak-out, but I probably won't notice because I'll be having my own while Petunia bitches in my ear about those awful people who ruined our house.
And then there's the matter of health -- which is a funny thing for me to chirp about while I'm recovering from pneumonia. (Did I mention that I have pneumonia? Yeah... probably should've posted about that diagnosis, but I've been too damned tired.) Aside from my horrific illness at present, a lot of my memories of NJ are of Dash's 3+ years of ill health. Coupled with the multiple bouts of bronchitis I had there and Petunia's and my asthma that totally disappeared in California, I'll confess: I'm scared of the air in our former home state. I have a bag full of inhalers, and we'll be using them as a precaution. In all fairness, I've heard from plenty of people that their health/allergies/asthma is worse in California; but for us, well, we're well. (OK, we're all well except for me, right now, but that's my own running-myself-into-the-ground fault.) Dash gained seven pounds within five months of living in California; a year before that, he'd been failure-to-thrive. Hence, California is good for our health; New Jersey was not. And we're going back, and I'm a little scared.
But I have so many happy memories there, too, that I'm going to have to focus on those. Worry won't make me well any faster, but I'm thinking that a five-day stay in a super-nice Westin might help me along. No cooking, no cleaning... a vacation from vacation! I like it. I can do it. And I can also take my kids to their former favorite Vito's pizza, and to Sumo Sushi, and to climb on the tigers at Princeton... we can play on Petunia's former school playground, and, best of all, we can visit our old friends, some of whom we've missed terribly.
So tomorrow, we're off, for a wonderful visit with grandparents and a very special aunt and cousin, and then with good old friends. I wish I had more than 54 hours in Vermont to sort out all of these mixed feelings, but it is what it is. It's been a long and wonderful year away, but it's time to see our old home again -- and to accept that places change, but friends remain. See you soon, NJ.
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