I am sitting in the airport in Paris, in what are the wee hours of the morning where I’m from. I should be asleep, or I would be if I were home – but I am not. I am bleary from dozing on a transatlantic flight, waiting out the 7 hour layover before we get on one more short flight and wind up in Aberdeen, Scotland.

I meant to write this post before I left, I meant to write many posts before I left. I am not even sure when I will post it – maybe once I get to Aberdeen and Alison’s wifi, since I only get 15 minutes of free connection here at Charles de Gaulle. I most certainly will not be purchasing more, since I already somehow ended up with $50 worth of lunch (breakfast?) that I was too embarrassed to put back once the cashier read me the total. This was also the point when I made the unfortunate discovery that my debit card didn’t work, since I forgot to tell the bank that I was traveling.

Oh well. None of it can be helped right now, and I’m not even that upset, really. Mostly because I simply can’t believe that I’m on this trip at all.

There are certainly places in every life where bad things happen – things that are so hard to live through, much less comprehend. We ask why, we try to make sense, we say it shouldn’t be. I don’t deserve this.

But then there are also things that are so unexpectedly good, such a gift, that they also don’t make sense. This trip is how that is to me – so good, it shouldn’t be. I don’t deserve this. And while I did put forth effort to make it happen, so much of it has come together – well, beyond. Further than what I could have planned. Or asked, or imagined.

I can’t believe it’s happening, that I get to go all these places with my nearly grown daughter, that I get to see dearly loved friends in Scotland, in Paris, in Africa.

I think I that I thought that I wanted to write all those posts before I left to try and explain it all – this trip, I mean – that I could write out the pieces and make them add up. When I’m grieving, I try to puzzle it out because some place in my brain thinks that if I can pin it down, I can avoid whatever it was that got me there. I think maybe I thought that with something this good, I could pin down whatever got me here and do it again. Maybe share 10 helpful tips so something like this could happen for you, too.

What ridiculousness.

It is a gift, and I am running toward it with both hands open. Right now that is simply the best thing I can do.

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We’re here! Posting this from Alison’s living room in Aberdeen, Scotland. Yippee!