Snow day!

An unexpected day off is always nice. People here always freak out about snow, but I will admit to wishing and hoping last night for a day off today. Got my wish a little before 7pm. It does tangle things up for classes, but that’s OK. I’d rather have the day off.

I was going to write something about being able to do/plan as I wish, but I think I’m just going to go read and write and maybe do some work for classes tomorrow.

If you are not getting a snow day today, my condolences. If you are, enjoy it!

Suitcases

Who would have thought that something as simple and as worn as old roller bag suitcases could send me into a well of sadness? For the fourth Saturday, we have been cleaning out the storage unit where I put all my parents things after my dad died in 2013, and then added in the few remaining items when my mom passed in 2016. Yes, it’s been over five years that we’ve been paying for a 10×15 climate-controlled storage unit. Running out of estate money has made it a priority to clear things out.

Three weeks ago we took all the remaining furniture and bed to Good Will and to the dump. Two weeks ago we shifted everything remaining into a much smaller space and then took boxes of books home to sort through. The suitcases did not make it into the first run to the dump. Nor did they make it to the second run. Today, we planned on getting the rest of the books and figure out what, of what remained, would go to Good Will and what would go to the dump. This time, I knew the suitcases should go. As we were talking before we left the house, I started tearing up. There’s something about those suitcases that, more than any of the stuff/items/furniture I’ve been sorting through over the last month, most fully evokes my parents for me. I can picture them in my mind’s eye, walking steadily, if not rapidly, through various airports, pulling the bags behind them. Philly, Dublin, Munich, San Francisco, Portland, London, Tokyo, Hong Kong…they traveled a lot and enjoyed the hell out of it. Always with those roller bags.

Interestingly, they were the exceptions among their siblings. My mom’s sister would come out to Philly after my parent’s moved out here and she made one epic trip to South America, including Antarctica, with her second husband. But after that trip, she stuck to traveling between Sacramento and San Francisco, and then Philadelphia.

My uncle, my dad’s brother, hasn’t left the West Coast since he moved there after leaving the Navy. Now he lives in central Washington and travel is limited to driving down to Sunriver, Oregon, where we all meet up for a family reunion every year, and down to Napa Valley for short wine-tasting vacations. Other than that, they don’t travel. Of course, my aunt (uncle’s wife) doesn’t drive and is afraid to fly. That will limit your excursions.

I find that I’m sort of halfway in between. I love to travel, especially to Europe and around this country. But, I find that multiple trips in a couple of months are tiring and afterwards all I want to do is sit at home for about six months.

We got to the dump and while I was fussing with getting a couple of old lamps out of the back of the car, Mike got the suitcases and tossed them into the back of the trash truck. I didn’t even see them go, and I actually thought we’d forgotten to get them out of the car until we left. I’m glad I didn’t see them go. I tend to anthropomorphize things a lot and seeing them in the trash truck likely would have wrecked me.

It’s done and I’m okay with it. It was time. Who knew suitcases could evoke such emotions?

Friday Thoughts: Attitudes

For a while now, I’ve been trying to make sure that I arrive at work in a good frame of mind. When I manage it, the day is definitely brighter and more productive. There are times when I arrive and begin my day feeling pretty good and optimistic, and then something happens to wreak my carefully created mindset. An email from administration or a student or the dean or simply hearing some news about a program/project on campus. Pretty much anything that brings reality crashing in too early can wreck a mood immediately. I have one colleague who is very good at maintaining a sense of optimism and hope in the face of things that appear to spell doom. I am trying to follow her example and maintain an optimistic, or at least not totally pessimistic, attitude.

Granted, this is all work-related and does not affect the rest of the world outside of campus. Nevertheless, it winds up indirectly (and sometimes directly) affecting my life and tends to create a negative cascading affect. This cascading effect then leads to me having a bad attitude towards work (as I do recognize the source of the bad mood), which means I don’t want to go in the next day, or I spend the next day phoning it in. Neither of these are useful attitudes, nor do they help to make me feel any better.

This week was not a particularly bad week. I gave exams on Tuesday and Wednesday, which meant I only had to teach one class Monday, and the usual load of three on Thursday. Pretty easy, and not nearly as tiring, compared to a normal week. But, it was also one of those weeks where a number of threads and pieces of information came together and a more complete picture started to form. This is not a pretty picture and foretells of more chaos in the coming weeks and months.

However, I’ve managed to maintain my good attitude towards work. Why? Well, the picture that is taking shape is reminding me and emphasizing for me that I am making the right decisions going forward. In fact, I feel like I will be followed by others. Still others will remain trapped of their own volition (tenure tends to remove your ability to recognize when you should jump ship).

So, my attitude today is one of refining my route and moving forward along it. I will keep moving forward and work at keeping my attitude positive and resilient.

Go have a positive weekend!

Life and friends

Last night was a good night. I got to hang out with some friends I haven’t seen in a long while. Hubby was playing poker (hosted by the husband of one of said friends), so we each had separate social engagements. This is a very good thing. He got to hang out with a couple of our friends and some others, drink and play cards, and I got to see friends and talk chick things.

One thing I am reminded of when I meet up with this group of women is how lucky I am with regards to my husband. He’s thoughtful, supportive, and an equal partner in all things in our marriage. He does laundry, cooks, cleans, and takes care of a number of the grosser chores around the house (cleaning litter boxes for example). Last night I listened to the frustrations, anxieties and downright anger from two friends about their husbands. One has just told her husband that she wants a divorce. She has gone back and forth about this for several months now. She’s clearly not happy. Several times during the evening, as we were talking and she was describing some incident, or a reaction, she started tearing up. The other friend was having mild anxiety attacks as she listened to some of these issues. She’s also having problems with her husband and simultaneously dealing with her parent’s estate, trying to sell her childhood home, deal with a sister who doesn’t want to leave the house, a husband who seems ignorant of her wants, needs, desires, until and unless she spells them out. Multiple times. She wants to leave (I’m pretty sure), but she does not work outside the home and is unsure of her own skills and talents (which are numerous). Plus her daughter is pregnant and she is stressing over that as well.

As we all talked, I realized that I am very grateful for what I have. I have had a couple of bad relationships (patricide anyone??) but, I like to think that I learned from those relationships and avoided repeating the mistakes.

On the other hand, I felt a bit guilty. Not because I had nothing of consequence to complain about, but because I found myself thinking “you have said the same thing, made the same complaints for the last year or so. Do something!” Of course, without a job, and feeling like she has no skills, or is too old or whatever, makes contemplating leaving extremely scary. I cannot overlook that. I do try to remind her that she still has her skill set and that she is capable of taking care of herself. And, I try to dial back my annoyance (the annoyance is what makes me feel guilty).

All of this is by way of saying, life is funny. We fight some battles forever and always simply on the principle of the matter. Other battles, we seem to give up before the battle even starts. Lately I’ve been contemplating major life changes. Thinking about what I want to do/will be doing is very scary. There will be less money, we’ll be in a different city. This whole thing will take a lot of work and effort. And, there will be times when it won’t work out. But I’ll have to keep going. The more I think about what’s ahead, the more excited I am to get started. But then, I have started in many ways. While I still have a day job, my priorities are changing. This is going to be an interesting ride.

Life is funny. But, that’s what makes it an adventure.