Re-entry Blues

I bought this wonderful, plum colored, long sleeved t-shirt at the Cole Sport sale.  It resembles sweatshirt material in that it is very soft and comfortable against your skin, but without the bulk of a sweatshirt.  I love it.  In fact, if you live in park City, chances are you saw me in it last week because I wore it for 40 hours straight when my post vacation blues reached a new high and my hygienic antipathy reached a deplorable new low.  

I love traveling, particularly to the beach.  Being warm makes me happy and relaxed and excited to have a beer at 2 pm.  In addition to being able to fantasize about other people, I often fantasize about living in other places.  (By this point, most of you are probably thinking of a good therapist you could recommend…)  Whenever I go on vacation, I picture myself having a full-on 24/7 lifestyle in whatever vacationland I happen to be in.  In Hawaii, I visualize walking on the beach every morning, taking my kids to surf lessons after school, grilling fish nightly, and wearing a bathing suit 80% of the time (ok maybe not such a big benefit – but I probably wouldn’t eat as much with my belly exposed daily).  When I ‘m in Paris, I envision shopping in the local outdoor markets, conversing in perfect Francais with the owner of the fromagerie while he tempts me with his latest cheese addition, taking French cooking classes, picking up my bilingual children from their international school, taking the train to the Alps to ski on the weekends, or to the Riviera for sun in the summer, choosing delectable treats from the boulangerie, and being at least 30 pounds heavier.   Oddly, when we visited Park City before moving here, I never experienced those vacationland fantasies.  Maybe because I don’t daydream about mucking out in 2 feet of snow to take my kids to ski practice 6 days a week, or standing out in 10 degree weather for 6 hours to watch 90 seconds of ski racing, or shoveling the walkway, or shuttling my dog into the laundry room with 5 pounds of snow hanging from her fur.

But alas, here I am.  I always get a little depressed when I return from my travels.  Departing the warm, sky blue waters of the relaxing tropics, or the bustling streets of NYC to enter the khaki grey sage brush of Parley’s Canyon doesn’t elicit warm fuzzy feelings for me.   After any long journey, I finally arrive “home” to breathe a sigh of relief.  But then, the dirty clothes pour out of the suitcases and onto the laundry room floor, I look into the barren refrigerator and groan as the kids are whining that there is no food in the house, the dishwasher needs to be emptied, we are out of dog food, the mail is piled high with things that need attention.  Ugh, ugh ugh.  I just don’t want to jump back in.  This is what I call “re-entry issues”.   You’ve been off living a carefree life, and then – boom – you are back and slapped in the face with the banalities of your every-day existence.  That is when the fantasy novel kicks in.  It is always good to have a great book while on vacation or traveling, but even better to have a book that can deliver you through the post vacation blues.  It allows you to wallow in delusion for just a few days longer as you play catch up around the house.   It offers a delayed re-entry, if you will. 

Except this time, my fantasy book (i.e. Fifty Shades of Grey) was a little too encompassing, and my re-entry – a little bit more than delayed.   On day 2 of re-entry, I literally put the kids to bed, looked at the load of dirty dishes in the sink, pretended like I didn’t see the stack of bills next to my computer, walked over the scattered laundry on my closet floor, and headed straight for bed AND Christian Grey.   Fuck it.  I just didn’t care.  (This is one of the good things about having your husband gone during the week – you can let everything go until Thursday night).  The next day, I donned the soft purple shirt.  Since it was dreary, grey and cold I basked in the coziness of my sweatshirt in a t-shirt form factor and felt a little better.   I managed to clean up the kitchen, populate the fridge, and even put away a little laundry.  But all of these chores, and very little Mr. Grey made me tired.  I brushed my teeth, put on some jammie bottoms – but couldn’t shed the comfort zone of the purple shirt.  I slept in it.  Thankfully, I did not sweat.   The next morning I rushed the kids off to school and it was still a little chilly so I wore the shirt during my morning workout.  As the day marches on, I never had time to shower and continued to sport the purple shirt.  In the life of a stay at home mom, it’s not as hard to pull this off as you might think.  By hour 36, I was starting to feel like a sloth.  I really did consider wearing the shirt to bed for a second night, but my hygienic conscious kicked in and I did the right thing and reluctantly peeled the shirt off and took a shower.    

Friday rolls around and I’ve finally accepted the fact that Park City, with all of its good and bad qualities, is my home.   The house is in pretty good shape for my clean freak husband’s weekend arrival (no –re-entry issues for this fellow – he just comes and goes without a thought).   I had mentioned my “fictional novel” to my husband a couple of times over the phone.  I neglected to highlight my re-entry malaise, or the fact that I had stayed up until 1 am nearly ever night that week reading about Christian and Anastasia and their extracurricular coital activities.   Needless to say, he comes home more excited than usual for some playtime.  Because I have had so little sleep, I’m yawing and falling asleep on the couch at 8:30 pm.  I make it clear that tomorrow night would be better for all concerned.   However, somewhere around 11, I feel some snuggling, then groping, then lips on my neck and then… ouch! 

“Hey what are you doing?” I sit up and yell.  

I guess he was trying to muster his inner Christian Grey (minus the helicopter and showering of gifts – which I think are mandatory if you are going to engage in kinky behavior).  In the morning I see an ugly bruise on my neck.

“OH MY GOD!  You gave me a hickey!  We aren’t 16 anymore!  It is not fun or cute. Now I am a 44 year-old Haberdasher with a hickey!  No one is going to buy clothes from me! “   I moan.

“I thought you really liked that book,” he offers in way of an apology. 

The moral of this story is that there is a place for fantasy and fiction in our lives, but it should probably stay on the page, and in our minds.   Or maybe it should come with a warning, “Re-enactment strongly discouraged for the inexperienced.”