I’m not very honest about what happens in my life.

I touch on it here and there on Mommy’s Weird, but unless you were looking for it and piecing it together, I am not sure you would know or understand.

It’s been heavy.

So I jumped on a plane and I went home.

Yes, I ran away from my home to go to my childhood home.

I don’t go home alone very often.

I did it a few years ago when my Mom had cancer removed in her lung.

I’ve sent Chris home to Ontario on his own a few times in the last 5 years. I could see that he needed it and pretty much forced him into doing it. As a wife, you see these things.

A husband doesn’t see them as much.

Don’t get me wrong. I won the husband lottery. But, Chris doesn’t often see when I am falling apart. I mean, he may see it, but doesn’t know what to do with it.

I needed to go home.

As my Dad has told me my entire life “It’s time to gather your roots.”

Maybe I wanted to hide from my life too. I don’t think there is anything wrong with admitting that. I mean, let’s be honest. It’s pretty obvious that was the plan.

I just needed to be Kyla for a while.

Not a Mom. Not a wife.

But, I wasn’t expecting what I got.

I got so much more than that in my week away, that I took selfishly as a mental break.

I’m in tears as I write this because what the visit did to me, was make me realize that I want to be with my parents more. I want to come home more. I want to walk to the post office, the old railroad trail and hike Wakpatanka with my Dad.  I want to drink coffee for three hours with my Mom and Dad. I want to listen to the radio with them. I want to read books while in the same room as them. I want to laugh with my Dad when my Mom gets mad at us.

Basically, I want to breathe the same air that they are breathing.

Something else happened.

In my mid-twenties, I hated my home town. I hated it for so many reasons. Too many to list. But, mostly because I hated myself when I lived there. I hated the person I was in my childhood and when I moved back home in my early twenties, because I had no where else to go.  I equated it with failure.

I don’t feel that way anymore.

Possibly it’s growing up. Or maybe it changed when I became a mother. Maybe it started when I decided to give myself permission to like the person that I am.

Things hit me like tsunami of emotion on this visit.

Sure, I was consumed with wanting to spend more time with my parents.

But there were some other things that I decided I wanted more of in my life.

I want to see more of my sister’s life. I want to sit in the Minnedosa rink with my brother and sister in law and watch my nephews play hockey. I want to drink too much wine with a friend and his parents. I want to yell at the conservative government with my friend’s while the other watches on in fear. I want to walk around the Miniota school with my friend who now teaches there. I want my friend’s kid to wave at me and ask me where my kid’s are. I want to meet childhood friends for a beer.

I’m aware that it was incredibly selfish. I can hear my Mother now saying “Poor Chris, having to take care of the kid’s.”

I had to rely on other’s for help so that I could have this week. I had to ask a lot of Chris.

Mostly, I had to ask a lot of myself to allow me this time too enjoy every second and not feel a smidgen of guilt.

And it worked.

Listen, I am not looking at real estate in rural Manitoba.

But, I am booking another trip in February.