The next part of the sentence is, “When you are there.”
Every visit to family comes with the good, the bad, and the sometimes uncomfortable. With more free time on our hands, visits to adult children and their families are more frequent, often to see the grandchildren and to enjoy holiday celebrations. The consequences of these visits can involve the inevitable dispute among spouses. Sometimes these are overheard accidentally but on occasion these unfold before your very eyes. I had particularly boisterous parents so I have an aversion to displays of anger, apparently a learned response as a child.
Having an acute sense of impending doom, I try to escape these moments with undue haste. Sometimes, like a tornado, one can be trapped.
On a recent visit to one adult child, the spouse and their mother became embroiled in a brouhaha. It was like a car accident. I wanted to look away but there was no where to go.
This weekend visiting another adult child, the couple became involved in a somewhat heated discussion when I had made my way out to the outside deck to straighten up somethings and observe a little pumpkin carving with my grandson. Trapped outside, not wanting to intrude, I waited patiently for the storm to subside.
Now, these are uncommon and the convergence of these two episodes, remind me of my more youthful days. Age provides perspective…and less energy for life’s dust ups.
Life Gets Better 