I’m back. Shovelling out from under the snow which fell while we were gone, spoiling my dog and hugging my children so often they’ve taken to hiding in their rooms to avoid my reaching tentacles.

We had an absolutely great time. I would do it all over again if I ever get the chance. I just wouldn’t do it tomorrow. I missed my kids, my friends, and my country far more than I would have anticipated. I need a chance to sit back and get irritated by enjoy all three before I’m ready to dig out my passport and start globe trotting once more.

I laugh now at how I fretted over Boo and I being alone for fifteen days and not having anything to talk about. Those gaping silences mocked my imagination and I feared I would dream them into reality. In my pre-vacation worry marathon, I must have forgotten Boo and I got married for a reason in the first place. (Besides the fact I was knocked up with our second and my Daddy was holding a shot gun to our heads.) We do many things well together. Talking is one of them. If we ever ran out of topics to talk about we just turned to the old standby: Politics. Two people of vastly different ideologies and a bottle of tequila led to many interesting conversations (re: yelling matches overlooking the ocean).

“You are nothing but a radical, left wing socialist nut job! You’re once step short of being a commie!” He’d yell argue.

“Ya? So?” I’d taunt. “You are a blowhard Christian fundamentalist conservative who would sell his own mother and all his personal freedoms just for lower tax rates and the chance to kiss Stephen Harper and Ann Coulter’s ass,” I’d jeer.

I mean, we really mastered the art of sweet talk. When we weren’t arguing over politics, we were holding hands and trying to recapture the romance that led us together in the first place.

Snort.

If you believe that I have magic beans I could sell you too. While we did have one or two romantic moments, we weren’t joined at the hip. In fact, you’d likely have found Boo on the beach playing soccer with all the kids or at the pool enjoying a rowdy game of water polo, while I was busy ogling all the naked breasts floating about and trying to relax and not think about my kids, the adoption or the fact I haven’t started Christmas shopping yet.

It was hard to get romantic with one another when we were both lobster red and radiating enough heat to heat our home during a Canadian blizzard. There was a lot of “Don’t touch me!” yelled and “Ouch! That hurts!” whenever we were in bed together. Imagine him on one side of a king sized bed, me on the other and never the two meeting. Rather hard to bump uglies that way. We stood in front of the air conditioner vent and held hands. Pure bliss.

Thankfully, there was a wide variety of activities to partake in when we couldn’t get romantic with one another. Apparently, I impressed Boo with my sense of adventure. He seemed to have me confused for an eighty year old woman with bifocals and a penchant for knitting scarves instead of the healthy young lady I am. I was game for trying anything. Zip lines, cliff climbing, rappelling, and running topless down the beach. You only live once, right?

We ate food we had never before tasted, drank enough liquor to pickle our livers and enjoyed the tropical surroundings from part of a world we’d never before explored. There was laughter, romance and adventure. But something was missing and I couldn’t place my finger on it until we stepped off the air plane, gasped as we felt the bitter bite of the cold northerly wind gusting in our faces and grew goose bumps bigger than the hemorrhoids I sported during pregnancy.

We may have lived on a tropical beach for two weeks and enjoyed the warm ocean waters, but it wasn’t really paradise.

Paradise is, and always will be, where our hearts lay. Safely stored with our two beautiful kids who were left behind and all of our loved ones who kept the home fires warmly stoked for our arrival.

I found paradise amongst the snow drifts and blizzard like temperatures and I’m so glad to be back in it.

I’ve got to be out of my ever loving mind.