Postcards from Portland: Not so fast. First, there is (some) unpacking

I promised not to wait until I was unpacked before I finally spilled the stories and photos from the first big trip alone-together Lil E and I have taken. I am just barely keeping that promise.

Finally, after being home for five days, I woke up this morning and loaded and re-loaded the washer and dryer, trying to make my way to the bottom of a very full suitcase. I'm almost there but the suitcase is still sitting wide open in my hallway with belts, shoes, a self-help book I take on nearly every trip I've ever taken and have never read, a few receipts and a hat waiting patiently to be put away.

This is not the first time I've procrastinated unpacking. This week, though, has been particularly tough, and so I've given myself a break from worrying about details like laundry and groceries and doing any kind of cleaning. Some painful stuff landed in the middle of my week, only days after our vacation ended and I passed Lil E off for a week with his dad and then came home to a very empty home.  I chose to take care of myself instead, and so the suitcase sat.

This morning, tending to the piles of laundry and carry-on bag full of souvenirs and magazines and empty water bottles seemed therapeutic. I'd like to believe it is symbolic of moving out of this painful place and back into the normality and rhythm of my everyday life. But that is asking a lot of rolling t-shirts and tucking my toiletries into the cabinet under the sink.

Instead, it just felt good to get it all out of the way. To press pause on important but ambiguous ways I'm working on myself and do something productive and tangible. Every time I filled a basket with clothes warm and light from the dryer, I wasn't feeling more whole or happy. But I did feel like I was doing something. And that was enough.

Just a few minutes after my own laundry was folded, rolled, and tucked away, I got the text that Lil E and his dad had landed and my boy was on his way home. I knew he'd be coming down the street, wheeling his own little Cars suitcase that was packed full of clothes that needed to be cleaned. And after I smothered him with kisses, forced him to tell me stories about his week by plying him with salt water taffy, and made us dinner from restaurant leftovers in the fridge, I tended to his laundry as well.

Now that everyone here is where they should be -- home, safe, sleepy, together -- it's time to get to the second part of my promise. The stories and photos will be up soon.

Then we will be back to our normal, everyday things and back to the tougher, more ambiguous work as well.