emotional claustrophobia

'emotional claustrophobia'- that was my answer when beth rubbed her eyes, took a second look to make sure it was really me, and then asked 'what are you doing here?!?!?'

we had two days off in nashville and then the bus was to take off again on tour. all day tuesday i kept thinking about that bus and sleeping in the bunk and how sick i had felt the week previous. it sounds ridiculous (if you've never lived on a tour bus, that is) but i was literally DREADING getting back on. my parents and siblings were only a five and a half hour drive north and that was never far from my mind either. i finally gathered up the courage to ask my husband to let me drive to ohio. and he should win some award for being the best husband ever because after a couple of hours of thinking he told me at dinner that i could go. i was smiling like an idiot.

we left our sushi dinner and drove to the airport to get a rental car and at 9pm i began my trek to ohio. the five and a half hour drive became over seven due to a semi collision on I-65 just outside of louisville, ky. everyone sat in their cars for over an hour and a half...most of us just turned off our lights and our radios and sat silently on the road. normally this kind of delay makes me that woman with road rage, but tuesday night the silence was welcomed. i layed the seat back and thought.

i arrived sometime around 5am and my parents home was still fast asleep. i waited an hour and then i laid down next to my sister until she woke up.

emotional claustrophobia. that was the best answer i could come up with.

its funny too because i am not a person who needs a lot of alone time. when i have taken personality tests i always test somewhere in the middle range between introvert and extrovert leaning slightly toward extrovert. so its odd to me how much i needed that silent drive. then again, i was living on a 12 person bus with 17 people for almost a week. maybe even almost-extroverts can be suffocated by that.

at any rate, its been so good to have a couple of low-key days. the biggest event in the last couple of days was taking joe and josh to the playground (or "play shroun" as joe calls it) i can't believe how grown-up they are both getting....talking on the time... when i asked joe what he does at school he said 'read books' as clear as day. little joshy giggled 'mo fly' when i was pushing on the swings... i haven't had that much fun at the playground in a long time. it was refreshing to get to just play. oh yeah, and joe informed me that when we come back for his birthday party/thanksgiving, that he wants a shawn cake. i guess that means my husband's face is going to adorn the cake. can't wait for shawn to catch wind of that. (for background on these little boys i am gushing about, visit july's post "sahn come ome!")

tomorrow we fly to LA for the movie premiere of 'dreamer' and then on tuesday its home to seattle for me. can't wait! more later. (and i plan on spending a whole day catching up on email and posts, so if you are waiting for a reply, you won't have to wait too much longer)