Integrating the Spirals: Family first! (Road trip vacation, 45th high school reunion)

I’m back from vacation with more lessons learned!

Sadly, I missed seeing many friends. People I have known most of my life, one since I was 3 years old!

I had a list. A To Do list of everyone I wanted to see, and especially loved ones I wanted my daughter to see again and my granddaughters to meet. (My daughter rarely visits our home state and town either!)

I won’t share my list, suffice to say I had a list of 11 family and close friends I wanted to see over the course of four days. I had reached out to the oldest folks (like my uncle who is nearly 80 and “second mom” who is 85), but the others all use Facebook.

I had posted on Facebook (not only on my personal page, but on the high school reunion group posts too) about when and where we’d be staying (name of the hotel and dates) for TWO MONTHS prior to going on this trip, so that hopefully, friends could do their part and arrange their schedules to have time to visit with us. I sent individual Messenger messages to several, but I am simply not going to feel guilty for not calling or texting everyone. There comes a time when folks need to acknowledge “the road runs both ways.” I spent over $1,000 to make this trip happen, and traveled over 14 hours in a car with three children (ages 13 and 8 year old twins)! I refuse to chase people down! There’s a point when you have to know you did all you could, and I have reached that point.

Thursday

Upon arrival, so that my daughter could sleep after driving all night, I took the girls to the hotel indoor pool. We all got in and I enjoyed the coolness of the water and that it quickly reduced the swelling in my ankles from having ridden in the car over 14 hours. I wore compression socks, but my ankles puffed up anyway. Go figure.

At 63, it’s always something.

Note: I was cold after getting out of the pool but the girls weren’t done, so I wrapped myself in towls and sat down. I just happened to sit under a big air conditioner vent and it was blowing fairly swiftly. That exposure, plus the mold I smelled in the hotel gym from a leaking air conditioner (the carpet was still wet!) may have also contributed to me getting sick. But one can never really know what causes these things.

My daughter and I specifically chose this hotel for its indoor pool and because of its central location to many friends. In particular, it’s near to our dear family friends’ home and just across the river from my high school reunion activities (thinking if nothing else, it would make it easy for people to come see me (as I knew I wouldn’t have a car – my daughter planned to take the girls to see her dad who lived a half hour away).

Friday afternoon

I had the whole afternoon free when my daughter took the girls to visit her dad’s side of the family. My son was still enroute from North Carolina, so I reached out to several friends to see if anyone might want to visit with me.

My “second mom” (what I have called Liz since my mom passed away in 2017), came over to see me and we visited for about an hour in the hotel lobby. I took a short video so I could get a screen capture). While we were visiting, she was using cough drops but I don’t know if she had a bug. She had said she went to the doctor that morning and had to pickup her prescription at a pharmacy near the hotel.

One school friend and her husband stopped to talk with us (we were the first two gals in our class to accept/allow our hair to go gray – at our 30th high school reunion)! Her husband is of German ancestry and they noted Liz’s accent (as she’s German), thus they got a bit of Liz’s immigration story, young adult story (Liz had been a model in Germany). I wish I had audio recorded that! It’s a great story!

When Liz left, I walked her to her car, hugged and kissed her on the cheek.

Friday 6pm
I was to meet my cousin Greg’s widow and one of my oldest friends (and more) at the neighborhood ice cream social. They all wanted to meet Marie and the girls. We didn’t make it there because just as we were headed in that direction, my son showed up at our hotel after driving over 9 hours from North Carolina. Of course, since I hadn’t seen him in 3 years, I put family first! I’m glad I did. (Special note: Matt brought us fresh squash from his garden!)

Susan messaged me to see where we were when she didn’t see us at the social and I invited her to stop by the hotel on her way home. She did! And we all had a great visit in our hotel room til nearly midnight.

As I walked Susan out to her car, sciatica hit me, running down both of my legs! I had prepared for that though, having brought all my creams and lotions for my sore hip! I thought that would be the only potential pitfalls to going on this trip. I was wrong.

Saturday 6pm
Go to reunion dinner. I had prepaid for my ticket to go, but by 3pm I began feeling horrible and had a fever. I called my uncle and he said a prayer for me. Knowing my best friend and her heart-transplanted husband would pick me up and take me to the event, meant I might potentially pass something on to them, plus I was feeling worse by the minute! Thus by 5pm I made the call to stay in bed and not attend the reunion dinner. Yes, of course I was bummed! I had several friends who wanted to visit with me and vice versa. But I knew isolation would be the best at that point.

Spiral thought: Before the prayer, my uncle had asked me what I would take for this discomfort if I were home. N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC) immediately came to mind. He had never heard of it. I had a feeling he would go buy some and bring it to me. But here’s what happened. When my daughter had told me she woke up feeling bad the Wednesday morning of the evening we were to leave New Hampshire, I had added 3 NAC capsules to my weekly pill container and put a piece of paper in with them that simply said, NAC! I rarely need this supplement and knew I wouldn’t recognize it later. And then I completely forgot about packing them! Ha! When I woke up Sunday morning I went to take my daily supplements and I noticed the paper in one of the other day’s compartments. I immediately thought “this is an answer to the prayer”! I popped a NAC capsule and immediately began feeling a bit better! Of course, I continued taking what my daughter had brought too, which she generously offered to share, some over-the-counter sinus medication, vitamin C lozenges, etc. but I knew I probably wouldn’t see anyone else on my list at that point.

Sunday

Go to the cemetery and see/take pic of mom and dad’s burial marker:

I had agreed to go to home church with my uncle and aunt, so I canceled that but agreed we would stop by so they could see my daughter and meet her girls. Turns out, my son followed us there (and beat us there because we stopped at my best friend’s house so she and her husband could meet my granddaughters. My bestie doesn’t take no for an answer. She knew I wouldn’t have missed our reunion event unless it was serious. And they could have had a longer visit with us earlier on Saturday, but God has a way of orchestrating things for the best outcome of ALL. And though it was aggravating to me that I felt like I had to jump through hoops to make the visit happen, I have to accept it unfolded in the best way, and for the best.

While we were at my uncle’s house—I wanted my girls to smell the roses from the rosebush that grandmother had planted over 50-60 years ago; but I had also wanted to show uncle Jim the pictures from the Cole site I had found online (that I had saved on my phone); and I had wanted to ask if he might perform laying on of hands regarding the tinnitus, hip, etc.

The videos of my mom’s memorial with my uncle presiding (and the house that my grandparents built) are still available on my YouTube channel if you want to see:

I had wanted to visit with my cousin Greg’s widow, Susan (to see my dad’s baptism video that Greg had captured). Thankfully, they had attended the baptism in 2017 when I couldn’t make it. (I had already flown up for mom’s memorial and couldn’t do another trip that year). Susan has the video (on Greg’s older phone) but it wasn’t available for me to see. Old phones can be harder to charge, etc.

High on my list had also been to visit my longtime church friend, Cheryl (she’s a university hospital nursing teacher). It’s always tricky trying to visit her because she lives a few hours from my hometown. She had wanted a copy of my holistic health book. Now, I will sign and mail her a copy instead. We missed each other by mere minutes! She had driven in on Saturday to visit her 101 year old grandmother. I was going to go there (because I had known her too, Ginny knew both of my grandparents quite well), but when I started feeling bad, I knew I didn’t want to subject Cheryl’s grandmother to “whatever” I had.

My daughter had a priority to take her girls to visit their nana and papa (my first ex husband). (They have recently moved back to the area). The got to go visit them twice! It also turned out well because my son was able to go too! He hadn’t seen his dad in years (maybe 20 years?) and they had become estranged. So, I continue to consider and recognize this trip was to teach me the importance of “Family first”!

Yes, it’s disappointing when one travels so far and then I wasn’t able to get to either social event where friends we’re going to gather, but as I have said before… I’m seeing the yin and yang ☯️ of it ALL. And even more so I appreciate something my daughter says a lot, “Family first”!

Several friends reached out to me when I missed the reunion dinner, that they heard I was ill and that they hoped I felt better soon. I chatted with each as best I could even in my diminished state.

A few asked me how I thought I got sick and the only four thoughts that came to me (while I was laying in bed so feverish with the chills Saturday night ) was:

1. Caught it from my daughter (as I sat next to her on the 14 hour drive); she had been coughing and sneezing all the way, but had thought she just had allergies
2. Caught from friend who had just been in a doctors office (we know medical offices are often good breeding grounds for these bugs)
3. Getting chilled after swimming, I am also sensitive to chlorine and I had smelled strong chlorine in the pool area
4. Smelling the mold in the hotel gym

Oh, no! I’ve caught a summer cold!

I hope the family I missed will make an effort to see me at some point, as this trip is probably one I won’t make again. Unless I completely change my mind and body, which isn’t outside the realm of possibility. I just don’t know how likely that is to happen.

Yours in consciousness-expansion as we evolve and revolve during our mystical awakening. All while doing-my-egoless-best, to take you on a limitless, spiraling thought ride to better health, through doing more with ease, to help us sustain the JOY in our lives! (With lots of Gratitude throughout.)

Sheila “Spiral Sister” Murrey

The information provided is for educational purposes only and is not intended to treat, diagnose or prescribe.

About us

My husband is an award-winning illustrator, plus he’s a seasoned guitarist, bass player, and songwriter (with over 400 original songs). You can view some of his artwork and listen to many of his songs at: https://www.youtube.com/user/richardmurrey

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