Day 4 of 365
01/05/2015 01:01 a.m.
(I've decided to post my 365 tumblr story here as well...)

These long days of Nana caretaking stretch me, little hands and minds and hearts hungry for Daddy, who has moved to another state ahead of the family, for work in this impossible economy; and Mama working 55-60 hours per week with the future firmly in her sights. And my energy, while stretched, is well-spent and I feel a gratitude that far outweighs the creaks and groans of my years.

I know the end result will be worth it, the family together again in a part of the country we all know as “home”. The desert winds have crisped our tolerance and layered our lungs in a dust that we are all eager to shake off.

And for myself? It’s been an adventurous, yet frustrating four-year circuitous journey, having left Oregon in the spring of 2011 originally to join a partner in the UK, only to have his challenges there cut that future off, and then having found one of my soul mates in Pennsylvania later that year, only to have the unfinished business of a past relationship claim his heart anew in the fall of 2013, blocking my future dreams yet again, and leaving my heart a wreck.

So to return to the place where I started, the Pacific Northwest, the place where I was four years ago (and the place where I was actually born) seems an ironic yet poetically correct destination, at least for the foreseeable future of 2015. Where I go from there, I have no idea.