We did so little *actual* stuff this weekend that I can barely remember. But by god, how wonderful is it to sometimes stop the insane spinning of your on-the-go life and just do little to nothing? It was… awesome. Admittedly, we did do SOME things: I bought… groceries! And Ash bought… new running shoes! But for the most part, we hung close to the house.

I was bad on Friday: my friend, Pete, was sitting in my office around 10:15 AM and mentioned that I ought to join him and Catherine at Panera later in the day. I hemmed and hawed and complained about how I had to take my students to the library and oh, woe is me, all I want to do is go home and sleep for, like, a million hours. So I did the library thing and left and had some yummy food. Admittedly, I never did take a nap but I got to rest. Anymore, seems like a 5-10 minute rest can really help. My body is tired, I feel worn out. I am ready for this trimester to lapse into the second.

I understand that all these pregnancy things are merely phases but of course, while in said phases, they seem unending, pain multiplied by ten and stretched out before you like eternity. And don’t even get me started on the emotions. I am a wreck:

I was prompted to think about Dothan, Alabama. I was on the couch in a rare moment of Sunday silence; right after the 4:30 football games ended and Elliot had just gone to bed, Ash was in on the computer. I sat in the living room in darkness – the sun still up but hushed by so many trees out front – and I realized that I will probably never have another reason to return to Dothan, Alabama.

Both of my paternal grandparents were born and raised in and around Dothan. They moved away to start their family but moved back when I was eight years old. So for most of my life – until two Christmases ago – I went there at least twice a year. The city itself is small, industrious with a background in cargo shipping and bra and condom manufacturing. It has a good mix of old and new; a lot of football players buy houses on the copious amounts of land; a lot of people hunt. My best memories are of Thanksgiving. My grandparents’ house on Church street will always symbolize family. It will always make me think of chicken and dumplings. I will always remember sharing pull out couches with my cousins and collecting pecans in our coat pockets.

Although I still have a lot of family there, I don’t know when I will go back. My father travels to the old house at least once a month to finalize all the post-death things involved. They re-did the kitchen and I have seen it, but I cannot visualize it anyway but how I saw it as a child. The grape trellis in the back of the vast yard is gone now, as are the old hunting dogs that belonged to their neighbours, something the kids looked forward to when we visited because none of us had a family pet.

I felt so sad, thinking about that. And how, in due time, I will no longer have a reason to go to North Palm Beach, where – thankfully – my other grandparents still live. This too shall pass, like the day to day nausea and the back pain and the headaches. Everything passes.