The days after Christmas passed quietly.<\/p>\n
I went to the bakery most mornings.<\/p>\n
I walked through the streets.<\/p>\n
I took photographs.<\/p>\n
I painted.<\/p>\n
I read.<\/p>\n
Sometimes I sat in the courtyard for an entire afternoon.<\/p>\n
I had never been good at doing nothing.<\/p>\n
Even during retirement, I had always found something that needed attention.<\/p>\n
A bill.<\/p>\n
A phone call.<\/p>\n
A grocery list.<\/p>\n
A favor for Derek.<\/p>\n
There was always something.<\/p>\n
In Portugal, I began to enjoy the absence of those things.<\/p>\n
I still thought about my family.<\/p>\n
I still checked my phone.<\/p>\n
But I no longer felt that I had to be available every minute.<\/p>\n
That was a new feeling.<\/p>\n
It took some getting used to.<\/p>\n
One afternoon, I walked into a little shop and bought a postcard.<\/p>\n
It showed a narrow street with white walls and blue shutters.<\/p>\n
I wrote a message to Joanna.<\/p>\n
I told her about the painting I was working on.<\/p>\n
I told her about the bakery.<\/p>\n
I told her that I was thinking about taking another trip after I returned home.<\/p>\n
I didn't know where I would go.<\/p>\n
I just liked knowing that I could.<\/p>\n
I mailed the postcard.<\/p>\n
Then I walked back to the house.<\/p>\n
I was beginning to recognize the streets.<\/p>\n
I knew where to buy groceries.<\/p>\n
I knew which bakery had the best coffee.<\/p>\n
I knew where to sit when I wanted to watch people pass.<\/p>\n
The town was beginning to feel familiar.<\/p>\n
That mattered more than I expected.<\/p>\n
Near the end of January, Derek called.<\/p>\n
I was sitting at the little table in the courtyard.<\/p>\n
My watercolor paper was spread out in front of me.<\/p>\n
I had been trying to paint the shadows on a white wall.<\/p>\n
The phone rang.<\/p>\n
I picked it up.<\/p>\n
"Hello, sweetheart."<\/p>\n
"Hi, Mom."<\/p>\n
His voice sounded different.<\/p>\n
He didn't begin by asking whether I could do something for him.<\/p>\n
He didn't mention a bill.<\/p>\n
He didn't ask about Christmas dinner.<\/p>\n
He simply asked how I was doing.<\/p>\n
I smiled.<\/p>\n
"I'm doing well."<\/p>\n
He asked about Portugal.<\/p>\n
I told him about the painting lessons I had started taking.<\/p>\n
I told him about the little group of travelers I had met.<\/p>\n
I told him about the bakery.<\/p>\n
He listened.<\/p>\n
Then he said something I hadn't expected.<\/p>\n
"Mom, I've been thinking about Thanksgiving."<\/p>\n
I put down my paintbrush.<\/p>\n
I waited.<\/p>\n
He took a breath.<\/p>\n
"I knew Cassie was being hurtful. I just didn't want to argue with her in front of everyone."<\/p>\n
I looked at the courtyard.<\/p>\n
The little table.<\/p>\n
The paintbrush.<\/p>\n
The half-finished watercolor.<\/p>\n
I had imagined this conversation many times.<\/p>\n
I had imagined him apologizing.<\/p>\n
I had imagined him telling me that he understood.<\/p>\n
I had imagined him saying that he should have defended me.<\/p>\n
But hearing him admit what had happened was different.<\/p>\n
He continued.<\/p>\n
"I figured you'd understand, like you always do."<\/p>\n
I closed my eyes.<\/p>\n
That was the part that hurt.<\/p>\n
He had known I was upset.<\/p>\n
He had known the joke was unkind.<\/p>\n
He had simply assumed I would let it go.<\/p>\n
Because I always had.<\/p>\n
"That's exactly what hurt, Derek."<\/p>\n
He was quiet.<\/p>\n
I waited.<\/p>\n
Then he said, "I didn't realize how much I expected from you."<\/p>\n
I looked at the painting.<\/p>\n
The blue shutters were crooked.<\/p>\n
The shadows were uneven.<\/p>\n
I had been trying to make everything look right.<\/p>\n
But I had begun to like the imperfections.<\/p>\n
They made the painting feel like mine.<\/p>\n
Derek told me that he had noticed the difference when I wasn't there.<\/p>\n
He had to handle things he had never thought about before.<\/p>\n
He had to arrange the bills.<\/p>\n
He had to take care of the storage unit.<\/p>\n
He had to make decisions about the house.<\/p>\n
He had to figure out Christmas dinner.<\/p>\n
He admitted that he had been accustomed to my help.<\/p>\n
He said he should have appreciated it more.<\/p>\n
I listened.<\/p>\n
I didn't interrupt.<\/p>\n
I wanted him to finish.<\/p>\n
"I should have said something at Thanksgiving," he said.<\/p>\n
I looked out at the courtyard.<\/p>\n
"Yes. You should have."<\/p>\n
He didn't argue.<\/p>\n
There was no dramatic speech.<\/p>\n
No promise that he would never make another mistake.<\/p>\n
But he had finally acknowledged what had happened.<\/p>\n
That mattered.<\/p>\n
We talked for a while longer.<\/p>\n
He asked about the children.<\/p>\n
I asked about their school.<\/p>\n
He told me about something funny one of them had said.<\/p>\n
I laughed.<\/p>\n
It felt good to talk about ordinary things.<\/p>\n
Before we hung up, he said he would call again.<\/p>\n
I told him I would like that.<\/p>\n
After the call, I sat quietly.<\/p>\n
I felt sad.<\/p>\n
I also felt hopeful.<\/p>\n
Not because everything had been fixed.<\/p>\n
It hadn't.<\/p>\n
But because Derek had finally stopped pretending that nothing had happened.<\/p>\n
A few days later, Cassandra sent me a longer message.<\/p>\n
She said she had been thinking about Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n
She admitted that she had treated my cooking as something she could count on.<\/p>\n
She said she hadn't considered how insulting her joke sounded.<\/p>\n
I read the message carefully.<\/p>\n
Then I thanked her for apologizing.<\/p>\n
I told her that I hoped we could build a warmer relationship without returning to the old arrangement.<\/p>\n
She replied that it sounded fair.<\/p>\n
I put the phone down.<\/p>\n
I didn't feel triumphant.<\/p>\n
I didn't feel as though I had won anything.<\/p>\n
I simply felt that something had changed.<\/p>\n
The old arrangement had been comfortable for everyone except me.<\/p>\n
Now, at least, we were beginning to talk about it.<\/p>\n
I went back to my painting.<\/p>\n
The blue shutters were still crooked.<\/p>\n
I decided to leave them that way.<\/p>\n
Source: lessoninlife.net<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n The days after Christmas passed quietly. I went to the bakery most mornings. I walked through the streets. I took photographs. I painted. I read. Sometimes I sat in the … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10835,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sharestory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onesharedstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onesharedstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onesharedstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onesharedstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onesharedstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10841"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/onesharedstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10854,"href":"https:\/\/onesharedstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10841\/revisions\/10854"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onesharedstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onesharedstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onesharedstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onesharedstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nClick here to continue reading: PART 7: When My Eight Weeks in Portugal Came to an End, I Had to Decide Whether Returning Home Meant Returning to My Old Life<\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"