Rehab and Detox - Wising Up in Montana

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Greetings, all.

It's now Saturday, 12-31-22. We got home Monday early afternoon. We have been in rehab and detox since.

I've tried a few times to write a real blog entry here, to sum up our last week of the journey, to let you know we made it, to share the ins and outs and ups and downs and whys and wherefores. I wanted to write about the storm, and our plan in the face of the storm, and how well it worked. I wanted to write about how very difficult the return drive was. I wanted to write about us getting sick, and share our thoughts about what that meant to us, and how we've been dealing with it. I wanted to write about our particular experience of being out "in the world," to share what we've come up with so far in terms of meaning and purpose and learning. I wanted to share the moments and love and grace and connection we found in unexpected nooks and crannies of the world as we travelled. But the fact is that every time I sit down to write any of this up, another wave of grief and exhaustion and despair rises up inside, and I try for a while, and then stop. It's far too early, I guess, to think I have any "summing up" to offer. All I can manage to do is point to the attempt. Whether I will ever return here to complete a "proper" final entry I don't know.

So we're resting, demanding the break we'd hoped to find on our journey. We're breaking the rules about the when and how of that, and letting "rest' look like it needs to look. We're reading. Sleeping. Wondering. Pondering. Talking. And mostly we're doing what we can to rid the toxins of this world from our bodies, minds, hearts, and souls.

A couple of days ago, this song, and the accompanying scene from Magnolia, flew across my radar again. So I stopped whatever I was doing in the moment and watched it and cried and cried. I'm trying, in this period of rehab and detox, to "wise up," to learn the thing I keep failing to learn, to burn away the fantasy or hoping that keeps me trapped, to finally "let go" and "give up" that which continues to trip me up, if indeed there is such a thing. I think Sally's in a similar situation, and so we speak of this often, and while we may have found new layers of clarity about just how it is we must "wise up," again it feels far too soon to speak of such things outside of our constant circle of two.