Last Time. Last Time?

The first time we visited Napa was in 2006. It was a 60th birthday present for Cassie’s mom and for us and Cassie’s parents it was the trip of a lifetime. It has also become our (and especially Cassie’s) happy place. We’ve been back almost every year since — sometimes more than once a year — and this spring represented our third extended stay in the valley. 

We love it here. The food. The wine. The pace. The history. The mountains. The people. The small towns. The breakfast burritos. The scenery. All of it. And we know how lucky and privileged we are to get to spend so much time here and we don’t, for a second, take that for granted. 

For us, like everybody else, the last ten weeks were not what we expected. We had big ambitions for our Napa time with lots of visitors and activities planned. After our first ten days that all changed, and we discovered that we could easily slip into one of two unhelpful mindsets. We could compare this time to our last time(s) here and bemoan how different it is. Alternatively, we could become obsessed with the fact that this might be our last time here given Cassie’s metastatic breast cancer diagnosis. Who knows how she will feel a year from now. What if we never come back? What if this is our last time? 

Last time. Last time? Twin traps. One rooted in past comparisons. The other in future fears. The challenge we found is to stay rooted in this time because it actually is the only thing we get to control. And that’s not just about this ten weeks in California — it’s relevant to every aspect of our lives now. Are we going to spend our remaining and possibly severely limited time together wistfully looking back or in constant fear of what is to come or can we try to stay connected to each other and to each day? Honestly this is super hard for us but we have found that usually one of us at a time can stay more rooted in the now and help the other get there. We do that for each other constantly and it’s helping make this time, right now, some of the richest most connected time of our twenty-eight year relationship.