Boarding pass

Hello there!  Remember me?  My name is Alison and I used to visit this place often. Then a couple things happened, and those things ate up my days faster than Pac Man moved across that maze conzuming all those dots. Those dots?  Free time. 

First, and well documented here, the flooding and subsequent repair of my house.  I was cool during the whole thing, even-keeled, level-headed, kicked my feet up while watching my ceilings being torn out and my belongings packed into 95 boxes and, along with my furniture, moved out of my house.  I was even okay with having to move myself out of the house for two weeks. I was okay with all of that, until the day my house was finished and all my belongings moved back in.  That day?  A strange exhaustion came in from out of nowhere and settled in for a while.

Second, my new job.  Well, it's contract work but the goal on both sides is to move it into permanent employment before the end of the year.  It's a writing job and if that part of me had slumbered during my long stretch of unemployment, well it's wide awake now.  I've been doing research and writing for six weeks now.  I've been creating scripts and storyboards for training presentations, and writing brochures, technical papers for publication, and several articles.  I've been a writing machine! And that has felt so good, to be doing what I love doing, what I'm good at doing. And the research?  Getting paid to learn?  Wonderful.  But... but... I am worn OUT from it all.  My brain is tired.  It feels good, to have this kind of tired again, to be this kind of tired again.  But feeling good about it doesn't make me any less... tired. 

The night before my first day at work is the night I discovered the watery mess that my house was.  To say the least, the past six weeks have been a 360 degree turn from what was my familiar schedule.  I'm good at juggling multiple tasks and I'm not resistant to change but the last six weeks have felt as if I was surfing a gigantic wave just to stay afloat.  I do not know how to surf.

As a lucky twist of scheduling would have it, several months ago, I looked at my One Pass Mileage balance and thought, These darn things are just sitting there, it's time to use some.  I called my friend in Vermont and the planning began.  I arrived here Sunday afternoon. And I'm staying a while.