Crossword puzzles and Cade’s Cove

It’s Monday morning. I’m back at work and figured I’d tell you guys about my weekend. It was a pretty good one, actually. I got up on Saturday morning and drove through Knoxville to Townsend and made my way to Cade’s Cove. I’d never been to the mountains by myself, and it was great. It rained the whole drive from Nashville to Knoxville, but stopped around Watt Road and stayed dry until I was driving through Townsend to get back to Knoxville.

The drive through the mountains was soothing somehow. It didn’t magically make me feel fine or not sad or anything, but it was so nice to be in the mountains surrounded by trees and moss and rhododendron and water and rocks.

(I took the picture below just because I thought it was funny that so many people had pulled over to pet the horses. Like they’ve never seen horses before or something. ??)

After I got back into Knoxville I decided to stop by the UT trial gardens. It WAS raining at this point, and I got pretty wet even though I was wearing a raincoat. But it was just gorgeous and I’m really glad I stopped.

Sunday I went to church with Mom and Dad, and I’m glad I did that too. It’s funny – I forget how much Grace feels like home. It makes sense that it does – I spent more time there than I did anywhere except our house when I lived in Knoxville.

Grandma’s birthday party was a good time too. 🙂 All the siblings were there (Dad’s I mean) including Aunt Luci who I probably hadn’t seen in 10 years or so. I felt comfortable and like I belonged, and it was really nice.

So now I’m back in Nashville, getting on with the day-to-day again. I wish Matt was here. I wished he was with me all weekend long – and I’m not even going to try to explain what an enormous understatement that is. But it is what it is, and time is a healing power, and I’m going to be patient even though I feel like I’m treading water a lot of the time. I know I’ll be OK. But how I wish that I didn’t have anything to recover from….