when all roads lead to Rome

As promised, it's time to begin telling you about my trip to Rome. It's a story unlike any other in my life, one that began years and years ago...before my daughter walked out of my life, before my son was conceived, before mortgages and marriage and college, before my first car and my first kiss.

Navigating this life hasn't always been easy.

I took wrong turns. I took short cuts.

Both got me lost.

So I chose the "safe" route and stuck with a "tried-and-true" path.

Then I took on traveling companions who had their own needs and ideas. I trusted other voices more than my own, and seeing that I was gaining ground, I kept my eyes fixed safely on the road ahead, my past fixed neatly in the rearview mirror.

Strangers might look at my life today and say I have "arrived" at a dream destination (a single marriage, two children, a house with a white picket fence, a station wagon)...and yes, I am truly, truly blessed!

But I lost much of myself along the way.

Some of me was left behind long ago. Some of me took a back seat to everyday marriage and motherhood. Some of me is a victim of assumptions, of assuming I can't without someone else's approval, of assuming I need companionship to do the things I want to do.

Then some things happened, things that forced me to rethink my life...and now that I've been to Rome, I know what I had only begun to suspect before -- something I could somehow feel...but couldn't quite speak...not yet.

All the roads in my life have led me to Rome. That was one trip I had to take...a trip that was as much about the journey as the destination, a trip I had to take alone.

Hoppin' Here at the Holland House

Since my last post, things here have been "hoppin'."

My son missed a week of school with a nasty virus-turned-infection.

My daughter got married.

We went to the mountains for the weekend...which was perfectly lovely...until I came down with my own nasty virus...

...which was a real pisser...because being viral, my symptoms had to run their course. I did get a steroid shot...which seemed to help some...but I had only a few days to rest and recover before flying to Rome, Italy. Yes, Italy. And I went all by myself...though I'm sure Simon would have felt right at home exploring those cobbled-stone streets (and sniffin' some Italian tail).

In the following posts, I plan to tell you all about my trip...why I went, what I saw, what I ate, and what I learned along the way.

I hope you'll join me.

-B