I do not know about you, but I tend to build in a day or two post-vacations to “transition” back to the real world. I did not even start taking vacations until well into my adulthood. In fact, I just did the math (I like data) and I had just turned thirty the first time I took a true vacation as an adult. Unfortunately, I was smart back then, but you have a few hard first day backs and you learn.
This past week was my first true vacation since my sabbatical ended in September of last year. It was a true vacation as I set the out of office on all of my email accounts and did not check a one while I was away. To know me is to know what a feat that is. It was a great week at the beach with my family, and I savored every second of it.
On our final full beach day, I felt the nostalgia that I always do winding down a great trip, but I also felt a fresh emotion…excitement. In all of my years of travel, I have never felt excitement about getting home. Never. Trust me. I have been racking my brain to remember.
Whatever could be the difference this time?
Maybe, just maybe, it is the fact that I not simply had a ‘true vacation,’ but I did not necessarily need a ‘vacation’ from my life as it is today. Sure, it is always great to get away and go offline, but the life I am leading today is dramatically different from the one I was leading when I left on sabbatical fourteen months ago.
Put a pin in that last thought.
So, imagine my surprise when I got home and on my transition day, I subsequently fell apart a little bit. Not a lot, mind you, but certainly a little bit.
First, the drive home took about four hours longer than it should due to the entire state of Florida exiting at the same time we did.
Second, about four hours into our now ten-hour road trip, I started getting the creepy crawlies in my legs (which is more commonly known as restless leg syndrome). I have not had those in well over a decade (and only a handful of times in my life), but I got them, and they were making me crazy. Maybe “Baby” does not need to ride in the backseat anymore with these long legs. It actually reminded me of my flight over to Italy a few weeks back where I simply could not get comfortable. I am a pretty easy-going traveler so both of these instances are out of the ordinary for me. Is this just another thing about getting older that I need to tweak and adjust to?
Third, I have a lot of mutual friends with an old friend (shall we say), and sometimes because of social media, the smallness of our worlds collides, and I see things I do not want to see. There is something to be said that once seen, you cannot unsee it. As a very visual person, I can attest that is oh so accurate. There are some bigger issues here that need to be dealt with, and I know that, but first things first I was trying to figure out how not to spiral and nothing was working.
Fourth, I got the rest of the bids in for a major project at the cottage, and hand to heaven, I needed life support after reviewing them. I am not sure it was simply the pricing, but what the pricing triggered in me. I made a planning mistake on the cottage in the very beginning when it was just a dream scratched out on a piece of paper. Then, I chose the wrong designer for a piece of the construction. I followed that up by choosing the wrong person for the install of that design. It is one of those decisions in your life that you think is brilliant when making it, and then everything thing that touches it even remotely turns to absolute sh*t. For six years that original mistake (and the subsequent ones) has negatively impacted my professional relationships, my personal relationships, and my bank account. I am on the cusp of once and for all correcting the original error, but hand to God, I need an exorcist for what it is bringing up in me. I feel every bit of shame and regret from the past six years washing over me in waves. Coupled with simply kicking myself so hard over the money wasted (this girl does not like to waste money). This next bit is for the single women out there. Unless you are a grown-a** adult single woman, you have ZERO idea what it is like to have to make every decision alone. Major decisions. Minor decisions. Financial decisions. Health decisions. Everything. I am fifty-three years old, and I am f*cking sick and tired of having every decision in my life resting on my shoulders. I have been making adult decisions since I was eight years old without any adult supervision, and I am over it. I also have issues accepting help, and I know that too. At the end of the day though, whether I have outside counsel or not (and I have some of the best paid and unpaid counsel out there), it is on my shoulders. Me, myself, and I. Something happened on the final month of my sabbatical that broke me completely in this regard. It is like I had been holding a section(s) of my life together with duct tape and Elmer’s glue for so long that when I was finally able to let go, the full weight of what had been on me, and what still (and might always) remain on me was fully felt by my conscious brain. I grieved for that girl. I simply cannot imagine what it is like for all of you out there with true partners. I am sure it is not perfect, but my God what must it be like to have someone to shoulder this life with…?
Well, that ended up being a thing.
*Deep Breath*
Fifth, and finally, I am lonely. It is hard to admit that. The fact of the matter is that I have great relationships in my life, and I still believe that I am the luckiest woman in the world in this respect. I do not have love though, and on number four above you saw that leak out all over the page. My friends and family (especially my nephew Sam) love to tease me about my, shall we say “enthusiasm” for life. My friend Katie loves to tell stories about driving down the road with me in Rwanda back in 2021, and how I would exclaim, “This is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.” only to repeat myself again and again about every half mile. My nephew Sam likes to say that I am the best person in the world to give a present to because of my reactions full of gratitude and glee. Sam was teasing me about this while at the beach last week. I got excited about the fireworks or something and he teased me relentlessly. I say all of that to say that I wish I had someone to be “enthusiastic” with…to come home to and share my experiences with and to hear theirs, to experience life with and be enthusiastic together over it. I have never felt lonelier than this last trip to Italy and this past week at the beach. To have these amazing experiences and not have someone to experience them with pricked deeper than it has in the past. Maybe it is because I am feeling more these days without my “work” to numb me. Whatever it is, I do not like this feeling. At. All.
As a point of levity (because when it gets tense, I need to laugh), I would like to congratulate Taylor Swift on finding a “champion” as I started defining one back in my writing as early as 2011. In some ways, I wish I had not started examining her writing in early 2023 because it has exposed me to the rest of her life and seeing (even from a distance) the love story between her and Travis Kelce has put in my face every day something I want for myself and have kept buried for three decades. I am thrilled for the two of them (hell, anyone who has found true love), but my heart also feels like it is being dragged daily. Dragged as in what happened to my body in the ocean that last day with the rip currents coming in as the waves crashing you into the floor of the ocean, holding you down, and dragging you along (skin/body to sand) until you could fight your way back to the surface. You stay out in the ocean because it is amazing and beautiful, but it is beating the sh*t out of you. I love a good love story because they too are amazing and beautiful, but they are currently beating the sh*t out of my heart because I am not living in one myself. That said, TS has found herself a one-man hype squad in TK, and vice versa, and as a die-hard romantic, I cannot look away. Bless my heart.
Let’s go back to that pin above ”…the life I am leading today is dramatically different from the one I was leading when I left on sabbatical fourteen months ago.”
And it is.
The truth is fourteen months ago I could not have processed or articulated the big five thoughts above. I am currently applauding my own damn self because the truth of that sentence cannot be blown off. I have really grown this past year and a half, and I am really, really proud of myself.
*Deep Breath*
The rest of the story is that I need some boundary work in some areas. I need to get this project done on the cottage, process it, and move on. What’s done is done. I also need to make time to have a real heart-to-heart with someone about what I need (and want). I need to not give up on getting my happily ever after, but I need to be honest about what is working and not working in that area of my life. I also need to knock some items off the to do lists on some big projects in my life. Making progress on those is the equivalent of giving hardcore drugs to a “normal” person.
Finally, I need to remind myself that I am doing awesome. It isn’t the same as living with your own personal hype-man, but it is not nothing either.
So, for all of us out here just knocking out our own honey-do lists and making big decisions and hyping ourselves up for another go around, this one is for you.
I hope you are having a sunshine filled summer.
Love,
Heather
Author’s Note: I will re-record the voiceover when I am back with my recording equipment. We writers do what we have to do when on the road and the words hit.
Boy do I relate to making. Every. Single. Decision. Nailed it. Cheers to one-woman hype squads!