Weekenders

We now live in an area that is home to many weekenders. The twin-lakes of Table Rock and Bull Shoals, as well as the nearby world-renowned trout fishing at the White River make this a desirable holiday and vacation spot.
We were weekenders for four years, using our cabin for most weekends from Saturday morning until Monday morning – and every vacation in between. We would arrive and after completing any small home maintenance tasks that needed to be done; we crammed as much fun and relaxation into the days we had been given.
Now, I’m a full-timer, but my husband remains a weekender, working in Kansas City and staying with his sister’s family while coming home every other weekend to me and the 4 dogs.
Such is the consequence of selling our house in the city within five days, when we didn’t even know if it would sell within five months.
It’s not what I want to do, but it is what we have to do right now to see our dreams through in building a new house. We could just add on to this one, but we want our friends and family to feel the joy of being weekenders too. We want our cabin in the paradise of the Ozark Mountains to be for them.
Last night, as I was walking down our country road, looking at the beautiful setting sun over a calm blue-green lake, a feeling settled over me. The houses between our house and the lake were empty but for my aunt’s – the weekenders who had come down on Thursday and Friday night already gone. Their homes, now just silent, empty shells.
Mom used to call it the “let down,” that feeling that comes at the end of a fun vacation you’ve planned for, or the day after Christmas when the wrapping paper is strewn about, the turkey is all but bones and everyone has left you to the remains.
As a writer, I get this feeling every once in awhile when I’m sequestered in my house alone for too long. Many writers, I know feel the same thing at times.
Now that my husband is a weekender, he likes to nap on Sunday evening and leave at midnight, driving all night, getting to Kansas City just in time to punch in at 6 a.m.
It’s a schedule I of which I don’t approve because it not only interferes with my own sleep (who could sleep soundly knowing their husband was on the highway all night?) but allows the letdown to follow me into my Monday.
As a weekender, I used to get the feeling when we all pulled the truck away from our little cabin. Me and my husband, and the dogs too, I suppose, watching the house disappear into the woods as we drove up our winding driveway back to our life in the city.
We knew then we never wanted to leave. The writer in me craved a quiet inspirational place of beauty for my muse. My husband’s spirit craved a quieter life in a new profession that no longer required the agility of a young man.
As a full timer, I hate seeing my husband’s taillights winding their way up our drive into the blackness to a life we no longer share.
And he hates seeing the lights of our house disappear into the dark as he pulls away from a life he only shares with us part time.
As a family, we just want to be full timers again.