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Two trips, 20 years later

Memories aren't just about the places you were or the experiences you experienced. They are also about the way you felt. I'm 20 years removed from the feelings I was struggling with during two trips, but today, the rawness of my anxiety then surprises me because it seems so recent. Summer 2006. Ben was just born, and I had returned from family leave and wanted to take more but was pressured not to, even though company policy allowed me to use accrued sick time to do so ... and I had a lot banked up mostly because working for a daily newspaper, I resisted calling in sick unless I was dying. I also had plenty of vacation built up and was good about using it efficiently. I would need it because we were traveling to Chicago for Ben's christening, going to Minnesota for a friend's wedding in September, and then returning to Chicago later in September for another good friend's wedding. Oh, I was also absolutely fried at work. Not just fried, but paranoid and really bitter...
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A hill of a post

My annual summer solstice post is being written days after the solstice. A wildfire broke out near the hill I write from, and the sky was too smoky and cloudy for an effective sunset to provide inspiration. Then, Lori and I were in Colorado for five days for my niece's wedding. We got back but I was slammed with work that invaded my evenings. I finally moderately caught up to come out to my hillside tonight, but another problem awaited — I have no idea what to write about. The last year has been good and bad. Freelance work has been hit or miss — enough to sustain (helped by my severance and unemployment insurance) but not as full as I hoped. I applied for more than 100 jobs in the last year and got three total interviews. Most of the jobs I didn't want anyway because I want to make the freelance thing thrive, but it was nonetheless not encouraging. That said, I haven't been unhappy or stressed out. I'm sleeping at night. I've lost a nice chunk of weight (after bein...
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Another Saturday night, and I ain't got nobody

Saturday nights, 1979-81 My father worked most Saturday nights during this time, and I'm frankly at a loss at what I did to pass the time when I was a kid during these years. In the summer, I'm sure I was playing outside until it got dark (and sometimes past dark, my mother didn't like when we'd play Jailbreak -- think Kick the Can without a can -- and run through alleys). but the rest of the year, if I wasn't by a friend's house, Saturday nights were, maybe, bleak, especially during the winter. This was before cable, so our TV options were limited: "The Love Boat" and "Fantasy Island," but sometimes I wouldn't be in the mood. Perhaps I'd watch "Wild Kingdom" or a basketball game. Or, maybe I put on a movie on our Betamax. We owned only one car, so Mom didn't take us out on Saturday nights. We wouldn't have an Atari until November 1981, so that wasn't an issue, and I'd be lucky if I could get my sister to pla...
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The speedy solstice

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I say this every year, but this year it's seriously truer than ever -- the last 12 months have gone by incredibly fast.  I wonder that when things are just crazy/kind of bad, the brain's perception of time speeds up to protect itself. That doesn't explain why time flies when you're having fun, or the years zipping past so quickly as the boys were growing up, but that's the explanation I'm going with for this evening. I have returned to Donner Park for my annual summer solstice post, a few days too late because of clouds and a Weird Al Yankovic concert that Benji and I attended last night. It has already been six weeks since I was laid off, two months since my sabbatical (thank God I took it before being let go), six months since Christmas, nearly eight since the election (ugh), 10 since we moved Benji into the dorms, and nearly 11 since Ben and I visited Chicago last summer . All these events seem so recent but are in the past. And nothing is slowing time down....
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The surreal world

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I'm nearly two weeks into a regularly scheduled vacation but three weeks into a semi-permanent vacation. On May 14, I was laid off from my job of more than 10 years.  To say it's been weird is an understatement. I won't delve into the details of the layoff -- I've thought about it too much already -- and I have leads and opportunities ahead.   I just ... can't ... seem ... to chill.  The vacation was already on the books, and it has been nice. The boys, Michael's girlfriend and I drove from Utah to Northern Wisconsin first. After a couple days there, we drove to Chicago, did some fun stuff, attended my cousin's wedding, and visited with family. The three kids returned to Utah, and I'm staying an extra week. I did this weeklong on-my-own trip to Chicago last year and loved it. I spent a day downtown, explored my old haunts, did some writing, visited friends, and unwound. I was planning it again for July, but then the layoff happened. I figured, if it...
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The sabbatical sequel

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I'm lucky to work for a company that offers a one-month paid sabbatical for every five years of service. I hit my 10th anniversary in January, so I was eligible for another sabbatical ... and I didn't waste time in taking it. I went off the clock nearly five weeks ago (I got a few extra days thanks to a weekend and a couple vacation days I tacked on) and have tried hard to not think about work and, instead, concentrate on relaxing, recharging, and refocusing. I wasn't totally successful in not thinking about work, but I still would say, mission accomplished. The month didn't go as quickly as I feared it would. I'm not in a rush to resume work again in the morning, but it wasn't a blink-and-miss-it sabbatical. I'm not at the end here thinking, "What did I do the last month?" With the first Joe-batical, I got to a point in which I seemed just a little meandering . I got some stuff done around the house and some writing, but there were too many days t...
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2025 arrives

Today is New Year's Day, 2025. Many people are dreading what this year might bring, and I'm trying to continue to stay purposefully ignorant of national events. I'm not too proud of that, but keeping my head in the sand has saved me from stress beyond my control. That has worked for three months now, before the election, and I've been surprised how easy it has been to avoid news websites. Again, not so proud of myself, but after literal decades craving news, I could use the break. Instead, I have watched and read about more sports, have read more, and have kept myself otherwise distracted. So with that out of the way, I'm still focused on what 2025 can be. I'm not one to make resolutions so casually, but I don't consider the following to be resolutions so much as goals. Here they are: Approach every day with overwhelming purpose Find ways to nourish my soul and well-being every day Enjoy the things I have, and work toward making it easier to be able to reach...
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