Recovering

I’m currently in the Islands boozing with wild abandon…and then falling asleep on the beach.
I’m grateful to my mom friend who reminded me that I suggested we take a trip for some R&R about 2 months ago. I needed this. The pandemic has thrown off my vacation schedule, which has historically been March, July for family visits, and October.

For the past two years of pandemic travel, I’ve only ventured to Mexico and the Caribbean. I think I’m ready to resume wider travel in 2023.
But given the traumas of the summer I needed this reset.

Parenting has been a relative challenge. This chapter of ushering Hope into young adulthood has weathered me, and that’s saying something because the previous 2 years have also been doozies. I just want to get to some sense of normalcy again.

In good news, Hope has finally emotionally regulated a lot in the last month or so. She’s also coming to a place where she might be willing to seek counseling and meds—cross your fingers and say prayers folks. We *might* be on the verge of of a breakthru! She still hasn’t expressed any interest in renegotiating terms for moving out or staying at the end of the year. Pride cometh before the fall.

Yeah, yeah, I’ll be here to catch her.

I worry about her a lot. More than I thought was possible sometimes. I want so much for her, and I know she feels betrayed by my decision that she will need to move out. I’m realizing as we come closer to the deadline that not only is she not ready—she’s not even close. She got a job with Shipt some time ago, but never actually did any shopping or deliveries. When I asked her about it, she said she had so many questions about grocery shopping that she was just overwhelmed.

Yeah, it’s been rare that she’s joined me to do the household shopping. An occasional trip to Costco or Walmart does not give you the life skills to buy other people groceries—even with their list. She’s never made a delivery.

In any case, I know that the realization of adulting is starting to sink in, and it’s not pretty. Hell, I hate adulting myself. Bills, work, responsibilities! It’s a lot!

The last month also found me spiraling from a breakup I didn’t see coming at all. I’m devastated. I’m past the crying—which I didn’t do much of, but the questions, the rationale, the sadness…yeah, I’m still in the thick of it.

And then there’s work…whew. DEI work in the last, what 7ish years, has been brutal. Since that buffoon announced he was running for office, my work has required so much more of me. And bless your hearts White folks…seriously, if you ever considered yourself an ally to any marginalized groups, please go get your people together. I’ve got 10 more years of work before I can retire comfortably and deaing with White folk foolishness is just…whew…never-ending. I love my work, but real talk, I can honestly say I haven’t *liked* it in over 5 years. Working against oppression is effing exhausting.

So, beach time has been a nice balm to my latest emotional upheavals.

I head back to reality in a couple of days. Somehow, I’ve got a presentation due. Two dog sweaters (because somewhere along the way I had the brilliant idea to open an Etsy shop in honor of Yappy), a new order just came in and a zillion other projects that seemed like a good idea, but are now just feeling like time sucks.
I’ll also be calling the doc for a referral to a medication check in and also stepping up my exercise. The stress has done a number on my body and I need to get that under control as well. No joy in retiring early if I’m hobbling around.

I’m also going to start looking at dates to see if I can swing working remotely from the Caribbean for a month or two in 2023. I want to get a taste of my retirement fantasy and also explore some properties. I want to switch up my lifestyle a bit, and it just sounds like a radical thing to just pick up and move for a month and try it out. Just gotta figure out how to bring Yappy!

Anyway, back to the sunbathing.