My body is distributed over multiple time zones, my head is in a fog, and my heart is split several ways, mainly across midtown where The Husband is working and The Kid’s daycare nearby, where I am leaving him for a grand total of two hours today (as much as I can stand after a solid week together) while I write and grocery shop. We returned home from California last night, and I did my usual “don’t sleep at all” dance in response to a change in schedule, and so I feel the weariness settling in and promising to stay awhile. This post-vacation personality drop targets its victims mercilessly, as TH found out on the plane yesterday afternoon when he informed me that TK’s bouncy ball had gone missing. I reacted, he later recounted, as though he had told me we had just lost a world war, and that he would now gauge all other reactions in comparison to “Ball-Gate.” I laughed, took a melatonin, and defied its effects all night long.

I feel disingenuous referring to a cross-country trip as “vacation,” particularly when there was no beach time logged, no flags in the sand alerting servers to bring drinks. This journey took a monumental amount of planning, and I attempted to do that in pencil but couldn’t find one, so now I’m scrubbing all the pen marks away and finding the reality that took their place.

First of all: TK is a better traveler, indeed a better human being, than I am–that much is obvious already. He clearly takes after his father in this regard, and I am thankful. His complaints throughout the trip were limited to the one takeoff/landing flight segment that he stayed awake for (the final descent), with a few naptime whines thrown in. Mine were peppered throughout the trip because that’s how I roll, especially after multiple days spent tiptoeing around a dark hotel room while TK slept nearby. I tried to practice my gratitude as I reveled in the sound of his breathing, but then I would remember that TH was playing laser tag and I just got bitter all over again. Our former vacation days, spent letting the sun dry the salt water from our skin as we slept on adjoining towels, have been supplanted by the one whose name means as much. There were moments when this fact gave me a rueful jolt, like when I considered buying a trashy magazine for the flight and remembered that all I’d be reading for the next four hours would be TK’s sleep cues. Then there were the moments when I couldn’t get enough of the togetherness, especially when we awoke on Friday morning to news of the Aurora theater massacre and I sat on the bed, in the dark, minutes later, soaking in TH’s and TK’s breathing, feeling overwhelmed by the gratitude for which I’d been searching the day before.

Darkness is one thing; evil is another. Confronting it nowadays is much like the plot of Jaws 4: it’s personal. I have more to protect than ever, and the thought of my trio facing danger, of anyone’s family coming toe-to-toe with pure evil, leaves me shuddering in sadness and anger. It’s big enough, when I let it be, to toss aside the gratitude and replace it with fear, that ever-willing stand-in, and so I have to breathe…and remember Who’s in charge here. Certainly not me, and certainly not sons of bitches like the coward who hid behind tactical gear and painted hair and took over a dark theater.

Chaos may reign for brief periods, but it doesn’t win. Neither do its cousins fear and evil. TH and I separated briefly from TK for three of the nights of our trip to go and celebrate the weddings of family and friends, and as toasts were given and vows made, I remembered our own wedding day two years ago. I remembered that, book titles and the debates they engender aside, love does ultimately win: despite temporary evil, despite jet lag, despite mood swings. I remember that, as Fantine sang, “to love another person is to see the face of God.” And I stop complaining for a minute, open my weary eyes, and just look around at Him everywhere.