This post will be vague because I’m more privacy oriented than any blogger ought to be. Also, I’m a little more “along for the ride” than my usual “grab the steering wheel” self. So I barely know what hit me.
Late winter / spring kicked my ass. Bronchitis harpooned me and was reeling me in. Bitter, bone-dry, arctic, dehydrated air just wouldn’t let up and I suffered. Even my woodstove, which is a good friend to me, couldn’t bring my health or spirits up.
That doesn’t mean all was bad. I got my motorcycles running (though it was too cold to ride them much). I survived tax day (which I never take for granted). All in all it was just an ebb in the flow. The usual struggles of life continued through a “rough patch” and I sought to persevere.
Completely unrelated to the mundane, a hand up reached out for me. I caught a ride with someone else’s wave. My kid, who is full grown and an absolute boss in his own right, showed up with super discount plane tickets. He was going somewhere. Would I like to go too?
I’m never one to leave options on the table! I agreed, marked a calendar, and forgot about hazy futures. I went back to daily struggles… which seemed to never end. Infuriating bits of snow still lingers in pockets. Mud oozed. Nothing much was getting done. I gave up on the woodstove. I allowed myself to get pissed with the seasonal slog. There comes a time when a vacation will do me more good than the regular “self care”. I’d sunk below a threshold.
But time happens even when you feel locked in a loop. Thus it came to be that I am on vacation. Yesterday, my sleep deprived, weary, and bronchitis battered self climbed into a claustrophobic tube, then another, then another. I grumbled the rough the trip; packed like sardines, my ass hurt, I was unable to sleep. Time zones were crossed. Jet lag was banked for further misery.
But then it happened.
Paradise.
Right now, as I type this, I am in a tropical paradise!
I can scarcely believe my luck. As I breathe warm thawing air, humid from the ocean, warm but not too hot, I am simply awash with gratitude. And also shock. I, who have done “the trip of a lifetime” (within my expectations) so many times, have lucked into it again! I’ve been plucked from spring breakup / mud season to a sandy tropical beach.
What an amazing experience!
Good on ya, AC! As the song says, “Some beach–somewhere”!