emotions – The Wandering Turtle

Coming Home Different

I knew this trip would be special. I knew we would see beautiful places, meet interesting people, eat incredible food, and make memories that would stay with us for years. What I didn’t expect was to come home feeling different. Not dramatically different, and not in a way I can neatly explain, but shifted somehow. Somewhere between unfamiliar streets, long days at sea, conversations with people we hope to see again, and mornings when there was absolutely nowhere I had to be, something in me finally got quiet. I had forgotten what that felt like.

Before we left, I was anxious about almost everything. I worried about what I was leaving behind, what might happen while I was gone, what I might forget, and all the pieces of everyday life I normally keep carefully balanced. Even as we started the trip, part of my brain was still at home, mentally running through lists and responsibilities. Feeling like I had abandoned people who were gonna go through major things while we were gone. But there is something about travel that slowly loosens your grip on all of that. You can only stand in front of so many beautiful places, wander through so many unfamiliar streets, and look out across so much open water before the noise starts to lose some of its power. The things that seemed so urgent back home begin to feel a little smaller, and eventually you realize the world kept turning without your constant supervision.

At some point, I actually rested. Not the kind of rest where you sit on the couch while checking your phone, answering emails, thinking about laundry, or mentally preparing for Monday, but the kind where your body and your mind both begin to understand that nothing is required of you in that moment. I think that may have been one of the greatest gifts of taking a longer vacation. So often we try to squeeze rest into five or seven days, but the first few days are spent getting there, recovering from travel, and adjusting to being away. Then we try to fit in everything we want to see and do, and just about the time we finally begin to relax, we are thinking about packing, flights, work, and everything waiting for us at home. This time there was enough time to move past the excitement and exhaustion, enough time to stop counting the days, and enough time to truly unwind.

There was also the wonder of meeting new people and seeing places I had only known through photographs or stories. We shared conversations with strangers from different places and different walks of life, wandered through cities layered with history, tried new foods, laughed at things that went wrong, and woke up not always knowing exactly what the day would bring. Travel has always reminded me how big the world is, but this trip reminded me how easy it is for my own world to become small when I am buried in routines, schedules, responsibilities, and expectations. There is so much life happening outside of the little circle we move through every day, and sometimes it takes leaving home to remember that.

Maybe that is why coming home feels so complicated. I missed home. I missed my own bed, familiar food, familiar routines, and the comfort of knowing where everything is. Yet as the trip came to an end, I also felt an unexpected anxiety about re-entering normal life. There are alarms, schedules, work, appointments, chores, responsibilities, and endless things that seem to need an immediate answer waiting on the other side of vacation. I found myself wondering how quickly the version of me who had finally learned to slow down would disappear once everyday life started demanding my attention again.

That may be the biggest thing I brought home with me: the realization that I don’t want to lose that version of myself. The woman who could sit still(ish) without feeling like she should be doing something else. The woman who wandered without needing every moment to have a purpose. The woman who looked around instead of constantly looking ahead. The woman who allowed herself to rest without feeling guilty about it. I think that is also why I came home already anxious to travel again. It isn’t because home isn’t good, and it isn’t because I want to escape my life. It is because travel reminds me of a version of myself that gets buried too easily in the middle of everyday living — a version that is curious, present, open, rested, and a little lighter.

Maybe the goal now isn’t simply to start planning the next trip, although I certainly want to do that. Maybe the real challenge is figuring out how to bring some of what I found out there back into my life here. To protect quiet moments instead of filling every empty space. To stop treating rest like something that has to be earned. To remember that not everything is urgent and that life does not fall apart simply because I step away from it for a while. Most of all, I want to remember how it felt to slow down enough to notice where I was, who I was with, and the life happening right in front of me.

I left home anxious about going. I came home anxious to go again. Somewhere along the way, I remembered just how much wandering changes me, and maybe that has always been the point.

Blessings Y’all – Amy

Today Is Mom’s Birthday

Today is my grandma’s birthday. We called her Mom.

My mother was 17 when she had me and we lived with my grandparents in my early years. I grew up hearing her be called Mom and it stuck. Somehow, that name fit her perfectly.

Birthdays after someone is gone are strange things. They don’t announce themselves loudly, but they sit with you all day. They show up in quiet moments—when you’re folding laundry, when you smell something familiar, when your hands are busy and your mind wanders back to her without asking permission.

Some of my deepest comforts came from Mom. Sewing, for one. My love of sewing—of fabric, and texture, and making something useful and beautiful with my hands—came straight from her. When I sew now, it feels like a conversation that never really ended. Every stitch carries a little bit of her patience, her practicality, her quiet creativity. It still feels like being close to her, even all these years later.

Then there’s the food. I miss her slumghetti—that wonderfully imperfect, comforting dish that somehow tasted like home no matter how simple it was. No one else makes it quite the same, and maybe that’s the point. It wasn’t just about the meal; it was about the care behind it, the way she made it for me as many times as I asked as an act of love.

Some of the moments I miss most are the smallest ones. When I was little and didn’t want to nap, she’d let me hold her ring finger while she told me to “rest my eyes.” I can still feel it—how safe that felt, how the world quieted down just enough. That tiny gesture held so much comfort. It was her way of saying, I’m here. You’re okay.

Mom had that rare gift of making you feel steady just by being present. Not the dramatic kind of safe—the quiet kind. The kind where the edges of the world soften. Where you don’t have to explain yourself. Where being loved is as natural as breathing.

I think about the lessons she taught without ever formally teaching them. How love looks like showing up. How strength can be gentle. How kindness doesn’t have to be loud to be powerful. How family is built on consistency, not perfection.

There are days I wish I could tell her who I’ve become since she left. About the life I’m building. About the ways her influence still shows up—in my hands, in my kitchen, in the way I care for the people I love. I think she’d smile at that.

Sometimes I catch myself doing something and think, That’s Mom. A habit. A phrase. A moment of patience I didn’t know I had. And when that happens, the ache softens, because it reminds me she’s still here—stitched into who I am.

Today, on her birthday, I miss her deeply. I miss her hands, her food, her quiet reassurances. But I’m also grateful. Grateful for a love so strong that it still shows up in the smallest moments of my life.

Happy Birthday, Mom.

I still hold your hand—just in different ways now.

Blessings Y’all – Amy

O Holy…Yah All That

Somewhere around the time you have your first go round with grief Christmas loses it’s first piece of the magic. By the second, third, or anywhere there after Christmas becomes a field of land mines to be navigated carefully in order to get from December 1st to December 31st in one piece. To come out of it anywhere close to sane without having a) lost a ton of weight b) quit your job or your family or c) stepped off the nearest cliff. You have days where you feel good. You do all the things – shop for the presents, plan the traditions, listen to the music. And then you have the others days….

Those days are the ones you have to watch out for. The days where you hope your tribe is near and their intervention is swift. Where the tears (or the rage) come so quickly it takes your breath away.

I remember, clearly, the first Christmas that was different. It was Christmas of 2014. My grandpa had passed in May and sometime in that summer I had shut off feeling. Stuffed everything in a box because something about his death reminded me, daily, that I was going to lose Fred and Mom (my grandma). Looking back I know now that was when I should have started my counseling journey, but you know, I was busy raising kids and taking care of everyone else first. Before that Christmas I was THE Christmas person. Traditions for the kids, Christmas music before Thanksgiving, more presents than would fit under the tree, kids having to have a stocking box because I got too much for their stocking, all the things. I pray my kids didn’t notice how much had changed for me that year but I’m learning now just how astute my children were so I know they did.

Fast forward to Christmas 2017. The year we lost Fred. We flat didn’t do it that year. I took the kids, and one of my might as well have been my kids, and boarded a ship. Started a new tradition of running away. Though the ships always celebrated Christmas something about not being at home where all the memories were made it easier to endure. COVID forced us home for one Christmas and I am positive I cried through the whole thing.

Despite having endured the loss of Mom this year – I am staying put for Christmas. I refuse to have my baby girl go through this holiday alone. But beyond that – I’m going to prove to myself how much work I have done. That I can do this. I know I am stronger now than I have ever been though there have been many days in the first 13 of this month I have questioned that – I’ll be honest. (I also am hightailing it out of town right after Christmas but that’s my reward.)

In the meantime, I’m going through the usual cycle of drowning in memories, experiencing daily roller coasters of emotions, and learning to be patient with myself in riding it out. But what I am NOT doing is stuffing it in a box. Ignoring my pain. It is exhausting the expectations to be “jolly” when you’d rather crawl under the covers and cry.

Grief is a monster that once it has you – it never lets you go. It may ease it’s grip sometimes, you may be able to put a leash on it and contain it for a while, but it’s like a second skin you have to learn to live with. If you were lucky enough to love and be loved? That grief is an indicator of the hole their absence left in your life. I have lost three wonderful people so far in my life – each loved me beyond measure – so I’ll carry their love and learn how to ride out the tough times and cherish the memories no matter how long it takes me to learn how.

If you are grieving this holiday season, be patient with yourself. If you know someone who is grieving, love them through it. Just being there is more help than you know. The holidays aren’t the stuff they portray in magazines and on TV. For some, they are a hellish 31 days to endure. Be kind. Be sensitive. Be thankful if you still feel their magic. Most of all…blessings.

Amy