After hemming and hawing between long periods of silence, P has officially bailed on the trip plans. And no matter how many times she hinted, I wouldn't accept it and let go of the idea until she could be explicit and definitive. It took up way too much of my head space in the last month.
It's really hard to tear my attention away from the back and forth over there. And whatever I couldn't see, I made up. I was sure she was heading off without me.
She finally called tonight and we had a fun and interesting talk, as usual. (She often closes by saying she really enjoyed talking to me.) I'm sad to realize the trip is definitively cancelled. I'm relieved to know she's not going without me. I feel more calm having reconnected with her. And I have plenty of observations that I can just take in without necessarily having feelings or opinions about them.
She said she spent a long time agonizing about the logistics of the trip (which were definitely challenging). Then she decided that she really wanted to do a major project on the house she bought and she wants to bring her adult kids to visit her this summer. She can't afford to do all those things, so she identified her priorities.
It was a long call. I ended first. It's such an emotional let down when it's over. Such a long time between drinks of water.
