End-of-Vacation Syndrome

• The children, regardless of age, are restless, cranky or melancholy, depending on their innate disposition. It's certainly within the realm of possibility for any one child to display all these emotions at once.
• Watches, cell phones and shoes begin to reappear on the edge of one's consciousness, then on one's body.
• One's surroundings begin to leak familiarity, until they seem alien. You suddenly feel excluded from all that welcomed you.
• Weather patterns in other parts of the world are matters of some urgency.
• There is a last rush to spend money, eat food, soak up the sun's rays, frantically have fun.
• You become sentimental about home: you are happy at the prospect of your own refrigerator, your own car, your own bed.
• Your mind struggles again to accommodate details, logistics, plans, obstacles: Life.
• You are crusted with salt and sand. Something like a margarata with feet. You try to hold onto this sensation as you once again don long pants.
• It is hopeless.

Welcome home.

--T.A.