How Did We Get Here? Part Two

Someone I love, lost someone she loved.

It was sudden; it was shocking. It was a tragic loss of someone much too young.  And it was a stunning reminder that life is, indeed, short, and that you only get one.

This was a world-rocking event.

So here we were.  There was this pandemic, and it was crushing.  There was this horrible reminder that you're not promised tomorrow. So I did something that's not very characteristic for me- I was spontaneous.

People who know me, know that I'm a bit of a planner.  Taking a last minute trip out of state isn't something most of my people would expect me to do.

And yet, one early spring morning I found myself enjoying a Sunday, Sunday, Sunday (it's a thing, I'll explain sometime) with the laptop, Zillow dreaming. I kept seeing these condos on the ocean in North Carolina that seemed crazy-cheap (relatively speaking), but it was clear that the prices were on the rise. We had a little financial flexibility, thanks to all the building we spent the last few decades doing. So when one of those condos showed up again, I did a crazy thing: I clicked the "Contact Agent" button. The phone rang a few minutes later... and that started the whirlwind.

We booked a hotel, boarded the dog, and spent my April break in sunny NC.  We ended the week dropping off a money order for a deposit on one of those blue condos at our real estate agent's office on our way back to NY.

What just happened? Did we just buy a condo?

Yes, yes we did. We bought a condo at Topsail Reef.

The view that sealed the deal.

Since then, we've been there at least once a month- school breaks, holidays, long weekends. When we're there, we're happy. Even Tucker is happy (we call him Reef Doggy).  We walk more. We talk more. We relax more. We work sometimes. We watch dolphins outside the door. We collect shells. We watch sunrises and sunsets.  We eat ice cream and drink margaritas (not at the same time). We take naps. 

The plan was to stay in NY a couple of more years. Work, visit the condo whenever we could. But the more time we spend there, the more I have to ask myself, "Why wait?"

Telling my people at work.... oh, that was hard. It's not like they didn't already know. I mean... it wasn't a surprise that once the ball got rolling it would pick up speed. That's just physics, right? (I think it is, anyway. Physics class was a long time ago.)  But still... 

So here we are. Moving toward the next 3 decades. Building in time. Time to relax. Time to see the kids. Time to engage in other things that bring us joy (like actually using that longarm machine I finally got after years of dreaming).Time to be more active.

And that's how we got here. 

Reef Doggy at Christmas

And the results are in.....

The Covid test results are back.... 

.... and negative.

I suppose it's not a bad thing that I had the last two days to rest. Goodness knows, I don't take that much time to rest very often.  Maybe the universe was just trying to help me out with a nudge in the direction of self-care?

Self-care is an interesting topic. Sometimes I think of it as resting. But honestly, self-care for me often looks like things that take energy.  Spending time with friends is a big one on my list of things that I find restorative. Family game nights with all the kids, even on Zoom- we laugh SO hard. Working on a quilt in the sewing room- or, just even playing with fabric in there (I like the planning as much as the actual creating). Fourteen-hour car trips to spend a couple of days watching dolphins (the dolphins part more than the car trip part anyway). And then, there are things that I don't enjoy doing, but I enjoy having done- like, cleaning the house.  I suppose exercise fits into that category as well.

It seems sort of ho-hum to say that one of my goals for the year is to be better at self-care. I mean, don't we always say we need to be better at that? I think I need to broaden my definition of things that are self-care. Saying "no" without explaining myself, for example- I'm not great at that.  Accepting help without saying, "No, thanks, I'm okay." Letting myself off the hook more often. Guarding my down-time and not feeling guilty for it.  Understanding that just because I can, doesn't mean I should (see: saying no). All of these are things I could practice more.

I also need to reframe why self-care is important. It's not just because "you can't pour from an empty pitcher"... which, is true. But why is it we should have to justify taking care of ourselves?

I suppose if I were going to summarize this post with a theme, I would have to say it's this: Because You're Worth It (apologies to that cosmetics company).

Tucker says, "It's okay to just chill, Mom."

How Did We Get Here? Part one.

So, there was this pandemic.

We go about our day to day lives and while sometimes we stop to take stock, most of the time, we do what we always do.  We wake up and start our days- we go to work, we take care of our families, we pay the bills, we try to figure out what's for dinner, maybe we get some time in there for things that make our souls sing (family game night? time with a good book? laughing at a movie on TV? hanging out with friends? whatever it is that refreshes you).  And then, we go to bed, and we get up, and we do it all over again (apologies to The Kinks). 

Once in a while though, something happens that makes us pause and examine what we're doing.  That can be something wonderful (winning the lottery??) but unfortunately, I find it's often the things that are hard to bear that pull me up short.

In the case of this particular Sea Change for me, it started with an announcement that we were "going remote".  We didn't know how to do that. We scrambled, under the shadow of fear of this virus that was spreading fast and killing people. We thought (hoped?) that by doing this- by hunkering down, going remote, washing our groceries, wearing our masks, and learning how to eyeball the distance of 6 feet to socially distance ourselves- we'd get through it and get back to normal.

Boy, what we didn't know.

As this dragged on and on and on, it became increasingly clear that, for the foreseeable future, this IS normal.  Ouch.

Not gonna lie. I suffered. I needed my people. I needed my kids who moved half a country away. I  needed to do the work I love- that is a huge part of my identity- in the ways I loved to do it. Face to face. Person to person. I believe in the energy exchange between beings. And mine was sapped, with no source of fuel. I won't go into all the details of the Ugly Phase. Suffice it to say, it deserved that label.

And this ugliness raised some questions for me. Namely, why am I doing the day to day the way I do? I've been wanting to get out of this cold, dark Northeast for decades, in a vague sort of "someday" way. Every winter is the winter of my discontent (sorry, Bard). And now that one bird had flown the nest, and the second was prepping his wings for flight, it was time to more seriously think about moving on.

Moving on is complicated though, isn't it? On paper, it's a process, a list of to-do's: Find a place to live somewhere warm, sell the house, quit the job(s), get a new job, buy a new house.  Neat and tidy, checkboxes to tick and move to the next.

Life's not neat and tidy, though, so the actual doing of the moving on thing is really pretty overwhelming. Find a place somewhere warm to live.... oh, but one with a community that shares my values.  Sell the house... oh, right, those bathrooms upstairs, yikes.  Quit the job.... that also means leaving my people, and that hurts my heart.  And so on, and so on.

So I started taking baby steps, moving in the direction of moving.  Get the house remodeled. Research places in The South that I could tolerate.  Look at the finances- how do we make this work?  The one silver lining- we DID figure out how to "go remote", so that was going to make moving away a whole lot easier. Actually, it would make it possible.

Still, though, a lot of this was mental exercise. I mean, we did the remodeling- but we figured we'd get to enjoy it for a few years before we sold the house. There was still a vague "someday" quality to it all.

And then someone I love, lost someone she loved. And that was a whole new "take stock" moment.

This is a long post. If you're still reading, bless your heart. (Practicing speaking South.)  I'm going to take a pause here before Part 2. So, stay tuned.