Hello Old Friends

Some appropriate tunes to entertain you while I check in, say hello and ramble on a bit.

It's been a while, and so much life has gone by since my last post:

We graduated our baby girl from high school. I flew my mom and sister out to help celebrate - such is the tiny size of our family that a graduation party required two extra chairs.  We are the lone wolf tribe, I'm afraid. So afraid. It was good, and bad and everything inbetween, the family gathering, the rite of passage. We managed to have fun, despite health and emotional issues and too much alcohol, which is our family norm.

We moved our son to the house he is renting with three other college roommates for the next year, about an hour from here. Nothing drives home an empty nest like missing furniture. But he is close enough and doing well and so sweet, and we are very happy and grateful and hopeful he finds his way through the labyrinth of college into something he can love in the real world.

We moved our baby girl to college in Florida, where she shed her old life and belongings like a snake skin and emerged shiny and happy in her new life, where she continues to be happy beyond our greatest hopes. It's almost boring to answer when friends ask how she is. Great. Really great. Loves it. Loves everything. Loves her roommate, dorm, teammates, coaches, classes, professors, college town, campus, etc. Did I mention she's practically going to school for free? Between beach volleyball and academic money, it's costing us next to nothing for her to be there, just travel. What a long ride 3000 miles turned out to be! Also, she has a boyfriend already, her first - thanks to an early summer freshman wilderness trek mixer in the mountains and copious amounts of facetime chats all summer. He seems a nice enough young man, and he's smart, funny and adores her. What more could I ask for? I tell my friends that both my kids are doing great and are happy so my husband and I decided we need to be happy too. Whatever that means.

So far so good. We are looking around at this big house asking ourselves How did we get here??
Cue the music.

Letting the days go by.

Rethinking everything. Marveling at how much stuff we accumulated in the 18 years we've lived here. How fast those 18 years went. How much our kids left behind, and what will we ever do with it all?  For our entertainment, we looked at some condos nearby. Great idea, that. No yard work, walk to stores, pubs, restaurants. Problem number One is the sheer magnitude of downsizing the furniture and the stuff. Oh the stuff. It's everywhere. I got house blind to it for a while, but now I see. 

Second problem is those nifty locations come at a ridiculous increase in taxes and hefty monthly HOA fees. I'm feeling LESS, not more in every possible way right now, and money is the top of the list. I want off the merrygoround of work-spend-work-spend-die.  So I'm doing math, trying to figure out what we need, what we want, where we want to be. It's heady, disorienting stuff.

Third problem is never being able to let the dog out the door again, always walking on a leash, relegated to public, not private space. To be honest, our current yard is more a park than a yard. We could camp here, happily. Fire pit, hammock, privacy, it's perfect, but it comes at a cost. Manual labor or hired help. Our backs will no longer cooperate with yard work. Hell, my neck, back, shoulders and hips just take turns fucking with me these days. I figure to get maybe one good week a month where I can do what I plan on and not be laid up in pain afterward. Yardwork. Ugh. 

Not to mention the shit that keeps trying to kill me around here: the 10 foot tall poison hemlock in my garden, nightshade and jimson weed too, all around the yard. Poison ivy everywhere, I've pulled 5 patches after a miserable month long outbreak. Even my acid reflux meds turned out to be a potential killer this summer. The last thing I need is more heart attack risk in my day. I'm leary, maybe a little skittish lately. About everything. 

Should I stay or should I go now?  

Cue the music.

Pitiful me, having to figure things out, make decisions, find out who I am and what I want now, this late in the game. It is distracting work. But necessary.

My husband decided he wanted to travel again, camp and see the country, only this time in an RV. 

I resisted at first, as is my standard mode, but warmed up to the idea of poring over the atlas, wondering what scenery would surprise me next, and being able to take the dog along trouble free.

We go camping in comfort this weekend, actually. Just a two hour hop to some of the most scenic and oldest rocks in Illinois. You can bet I will be taking pictures.

I still take pictures, so very many of them, and I haven't had the time or the notion to download, edit, archive or post them anywhere. Technology is currently chapping my ass. I am a Pavlovian dog slave to things that beep and ring and buzz, and almost none of it is relevant to me. My home phone has progressed from nuisance to rage inducing. I spend more time fighting with the devices that allegedly enrich my life than I ever imagined, and troubleshooting things is infinitely more complex and annoying than it should be. I'm becoming a pissed old lady, that much is certain. 

My kids hop apps and media with a fickle disdain and I struggle to keep up with them. The do not face book or instagram or tweet these days, so last issue, those things. They barely snap chat, mostly text and use something called Zip Zap that is local only, the latest college thing. I'm tired of trying to stay in the loop. I just call them or make them face time me so I can see their smiling faces.

I spent all day having new Xfinity equipment installed, in a sad attempt to lower my monthly bill. I got a security system I didn't want or need in the bargain, and my upgrade equipment is running about 65 decibels and my internet signal is half as strong and the whole thing keeps crashing, so that is happening too. Not a happy camper today. Need to go camping. 

And then there's the internet. Ugh.  I find most of the news to be sad, and most of the discourse on the internet to be ignorant and disheartening, especially the angry bigots I encounter on facebook comments, or comments anywhere for that matter. All anger and ignorance, no reason or human kindness and I instinctively withdraw. Once a conflict avoider, always a conflict avoider. I admire those with the gumption to fight, to try to reason, or do the right thing, but a part of me just can't engage anymore. Nothing matters and what if it did? That's the sing song in my head, where public discourse is involved. It's just all too much, the amount of moral outrage I've stifled over the last several months, at confederate flags, Kim Davis, public shootings, the arrest of a Muslim 9th grader because he made a clock that nincompoops thought looked like a bomb because it was in a Target pencil box which is so like a briefcase, or maybe because his name isn't 'Merican enough. And so on. My outrage cup spilleth over and what can I do besides spin and sputter in rebuttal. 

Waah Waah Waah. 

So. I will gather my little circle around and do the best I can right here, because I can't fix over there, or yesterday or tomorrow. Just now, right here, this. This messy big house and overgrown yard. Weed where I'm standing until my back gives out, so to speak. It is not good enough, but it's what I've got. For now.

Did I mention I'm still deliriously tired? Can't get to sleep. Can't stay asleep. Can't stop having stupid, insane nightmares. Still. That broken record, my silly, silly life. UGH. No wonder I babble.

I feel fallow, I feel old. I am creaky and tired. So I am going camping. Might as well be all that somewhere new and interesting, Yes? It will not be boring, that much I know.

I am trying. I tell my husband that and he jokes, yes, you are. (get it? I'm trying as in attempting and he jokes I'm trying as in challenging. He can still make me laugh and that much I know is good.)

I'll let you know how it all pans out. Expect lots of scenery and sunset pictures.

I've missed you all.

xo