The first few days have a strangeness to them. First – my body is just not mine anymore. Not only has my tolerance for alcohol hit a new low – but I am tired. Nine o’clock every night and I’m heading for bed… or my seat on the couch in front of the TV. Muscles just are not working properly. I’m beginning to suspect the change in the air – from a dusty 120 degrees to the crisp and fresh seventy degree air in Jersey. Certain tensions are just melting away – and making me sleepy.

Then, of course, the house has different rhythms since I’ve been away. Which is fine – the rest of the family needed to do that. But I have to stand back a bit while I figure it out. I went into the city once already and will probably do that again this week. I didn’t see anyone I knew, but I was traveling off-peak which is not my usual. The weekend was full – with a family wedding on Saturday and Sunday saw a turn-around trip up to the Cape for a wake.

So – you see a bunch of people (not too many) and they ask you how things are going and you tell them it sucks and then….

I don’t know. No one has changed (except the kids are taller). I don’t think I’ve changed. But you’re out of the loop. Or you feel out of the loop. You feel like that friend from college who landed in the middle of a family gathering not his own. It’s not bad. You just find yourself looking in from outside a bit. But there is still a week left and the Fourth. Big week in town, with the Fireman’s Fair and the huge fireworks display on Thursday. Many picnics and gatherings.

I should probably feel right at home just in time to go back.