AH, THE SPA.

For fourteen years, I have left my daughter and husband to fend for themselves for forty-eight hours (for the past four years though, it has been just Ray) while I exhaustingly check into a resort in Charlottesville, VA for some much needed tune ups and repairs.  I just need a few hours to spend with an esthetician and massage therapist.  My two Lake Anna roommates, another very close girlfriend and I check into a suite loaded down with all the necessities:  food, drink, tablets loaded with games and novels, IPODs with downloaded music from every genre, board games, simple deck of cards and walking shoes (in case we aren't being lazy and decide to walk the hills checking out the million dollar homes).  My thoughts run from how funny it is that just a few short years ago we brought same food and drink but toted along books, magazines and Walkmans (what was a Kindle, Nook, Ipod or Ipad?).  And those million dollar homes I would daydream about owning have turned into daydreams of a rental home in Panama. We even joked about how some of bonding time was being taken over by playing games on those electronic devices.  But when talking, our conversations over  cocktail hour (we prepare the food and drink in our suite) can be as simple as what happened during our spa services or as complex as our personal health issues that have now started to rear an ugly head.  We went fourteen years being young and healthy.  Age and sickness was bound to occur along the way.  We laugh at ourselves, play games fiercely and competitively, and during conversation, we share thoughts, and concerns of the present and future.  We toasted that we can no longer be stricken with illness.  I was reminded of the vow we made fourteen years ago that only in death will someone be allowed to break the spa weekend dynamics.  Oh, the pressure.  The heartache.  The wonder that I will still be able to pull off spa weekend from 2,100 miles away.

The Spa.

Retreat for two days.

I had a nice conversation about Panama while walking yesterday with one of these four woman.  She is wonderfully supportive.  I do not see her as often as my Lake Anna roommates, and it was easy to talk about the future.  We talked about friends visiting Panama.  She had some excellent ideas for what I hope will be the influx of travelers coming to visit us and to see Panama.  We talked about Ray and I retiring to Panama and the plan that we have for living there.  At the end of the conversation we approached a swing by the water (it was time to rest).   I was explaining to her why it is that we have decided to do what we are doing and how soon we are going to do it.  After I made the comment and waving my hands in the air of "we just want to go outside the box, see what's out there for us, not to be working for the weekends going to bed at eight pm and waking at two am, and if we can do it now, we want to go now and just..."   She simply said, "You want to live."  YES.  EXACTLY.  We want to live.  For the days.  All the days.  We are young.  We are healthy.  We have done it right and played it safe.  As some would say "we are on a journey".  We look forward to the journey.