Papaya Mom

Sunday Scribblings…..found via Ingrid hosted at Sunday Sribblings.

This week’s prompt “I get that sinking feeling…”

I hug them goodbye one by one as the file down the hallway - a week’s worth of moments rushing through my mind. At moment’s I’ve loved and other’s I’ve felt as if I wanted to be alone. But now - facing alone - it’s all too real and that sinking feeling starts to creep up from the corners of the room.

I’ve known it before and faced it with more courage each time but it is not easy. That feeling that each neighbor could reach out and laugh - look me in the eye and know that I am here utterly alone. No one to talk to my mouth grows dry, I must remember to greet others. My first instinct is to hole up in this plastic version of paradise - in the semi-darkness of a hotel room. Here I can watch CNN and hear news of the world, sometimes event that outside my door.

Tomorrow I face my demons in a way I’ve avoided before. I still remember the stiff walls in Switzerland closing in, my nights alone in Amsterdam and the regret that follows. Where is that woman full of adventure? Is it she that when alone must fight to stay out of the dark cave of solitude? Over the years I’ve become more tolerant of her, understanding her motives and her roots. But this time, in a tropical paradise not unlike my own I will be brave and leave the cave behind.

The file out and I crawl into bed. The sheets hold me down so that I don’t run out over the warm tiles and the sounds of the road to find them and cling on riding their coattails all the way to Hawaii instead of my own home. I must wait almost twenty four hours before it is my time and as I lie in bed alone I wish my original plan to bring company of my own had happened. Who cares about the issues with those companions and how frustrating they would be - now I want them here so I can get rid of that sinking feeling.

Dawn awakens me gently but it takes effort to put up a wall against the fear. Shower. Dressed. Miss him and her. Deep Breath. Leave your room. Wish for company. Taxi. Farmers Market. Coffee Shop. Pool. Travel outside, alone with confidence and don’t let that sinking feeling creep in and pain the last days of travel green with fear…..don’t let it come in.

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