Rome day 36

A 37 day imaginary travelogue of a trip to Rome (with a few scattered other places such as New York). This is written to match the journey I am actually taking, and so each post is concurrent with the more or less actual day my wife and I are experiencing in Rome.

What day number are we on?: 36 and last!

Level of writer's drunkenness (in real life, scale of 1-10): two point four

What am I eating (in real life again)?: nope

Map or picture?:

 

Any other notes/Status: I've been writing in sequence, but suddenly decided to skip to this last one of our trip to get it and all its sadness quickly out of the way. 

But I must take time to add in here about the strange timing of this final piece of our epic trip. Today, the last day of our vacation, coincides with the only official Blog holiday we regularly observe here on clerkmanifesto. Yes, you guessed it, but you possibly only guessed it if you are Grape. Because today is Grape's birthday!

So as is the protocol of this special day we all now sing the happy birthday song to Grape!

Well, no, because you are all alone now you can just sort of hum it if you want.

Yes, sure, you can merely think about humming it. I'm sure Grape will appreciate anything you can do.  

Today's Entry:


My wife and I have a rule, borne of experience. We are not allowed to bemoan the end of a trip, or count down sadly to the end of a trip, until the very end of that vacation.

Well here we are.

The only thing we have going for us is that we are exhausted and we do love our wee little house that we have returned to in Minnesota.

But our hearts are all stripped out. We took buses and planes and trains today. We can't begin to take care of all we need to take care of right now in an instantly normal life. Astonishingly a regular workday is tomorrow for both of us after 5 weeks away.

We are intact, and we are whole, and that is good, but also we will now have to rebuild ourselves. Because even though life is beautiful, for 35 days happiness was just a little bit easier to come by. After all, for five weeks happiness just sat there, barely moving. How often does that happen? And coming back, stepping into normal life again, it is hard not to think "If only happiness didn't skitter around so much!"

You have to catch it, but it's no good caught. So you have to catch it again.