Viva Mexico!

We returned very late last night from an 8 day adventure to Cancun, Mexico. We took the girls with us and spent a week in the sun, surf, and ancient culture of the Mexican Riviera. This was Jon and the girls first trip to Mexico. I spent a summer there in college. 

Okay, I know Jon is going to tell me, "Hey you wrote on your post that this was my first trip to Mexico but I had been there before!" But really he had only been to TJ. I don't count that. It is practically California. 

In any case, I have been off the internet for about a week, but I have managed to catch up on my emails now. I wrote a journal entry one night there in Mexico about our trip that I will share in my post tomorrow. Tonight I just want to go to bed. :) I still am a bit jet lagged after the long day of traveling yesterday.

But I will share the best part of our trip before I finish my day's work and get the kids tucked in and then soak my growing body in a nice bath and get in bed. For me, the best part of our trip was finally feeling a sense of peace and joy unhindered by grief. It is said that we must know the bitter to enjoy the sweet. This, however, has become a puzzle for me in trying to find my way to joy through this grief. 

It has seemed that every joy is tainted with the pain of grief because the loss is so permanent. When the bitter is still in your mouth it is hard to fully enjoy the sweet before you. This trip, being in so far away a place, revisiting places I had been before as a single adult, I somehow was able to almost totally leave my grief at home. I only had one or two moments of ache the whole trip. The rest was pure enjoyment.

The best part of my trip was just that -- a taste of pure enjoyment.