Elaine likes chores. She sits there thinking them up. That's not something we have in common.

If I had a pressure gauge you’d see the needle dropping almost immediately upon arrival at the cottage. Being there is like a really good drug. When I had kidney stones a few years ago they gave me Demerol and within seconds the pain was easing. That’s what being at the cottage is like. We leave Moncton wound up and not knowing it and then we sit on the porch of the cottage and decompress. I’m surprised our eardrums don’t pop. We almost always say, with some surprise, “Wow, was I stressed.” Pressure tends to creep up.

Briefly we thought about moving there permanently but I think the real value of the cottage is about being somewhere else. A place isn’t somewhere else if you’re there all the time. Perspective is gained from seeing things from two slightly different directions. Slipping out to the coast always provides that perspective and when we come back to the world we see things as they are again. If we moved there, we’d just have to find another place to help us maintain our sanity. We need some other refuge.

Besides this year we have a bonus because the place will be paid off and then even the loan payments won’t be an added stressor.

An even bigger bonus this year is that the long haul of doing an internship at CFB Gagetown is over. I loved it, but it’s over and I’m home again and we can whip out to the cottage during the week and commute to Moncton, it’s so close. Eighteen months of seeing each other only on weekends is plenty. School’s over. Time to get on with life.