The Sweet Escape

Disclaimer: While I generally try to keep my posts positive, this is after all a blog of my life.  And so every now and then I hope you'll forgive my moments of frustration and brutal honesty and know that I just need to vent to the blogosphere without worrying what people are going to say. Thanks for being my readers and friends and letting me be me. :)

After the fun and craziness of last week, this week has been a bit of a let-down.  I am excited that ProMo and I are headed to DC for the weekend (a work trip with most fortuitous timing) because I know it will shake me out of this funk.

What do I blame it on? That the semester is over and students - and their energy - are no longer here? That the weather has been cold and rainy all week? That my entire work focus will shift for the next 3 months? That if I hear a student - or worse yet another faculty member - say "so do you actually work in the summer?" one more time I'm going to scream? It probably has to do with all of them.

As a result, I find myself retreating back into my 'burg shell.  I "suddenly" (although I knew it was coming) find myself surrounded by people who don't "get" me. I live for the trips out of town (and trust me, there are some great ones coming up), but then I resent that I can't find that kind of happiness in my own little world here.  It's not right that someone should have to LEAVE their hometown to have fun.

And it's not that there isn't fun stuff to do here...there can be.  But without any good friends here, I'm relying on one person - ProMo - to do everything with.  To his credit, he's been great!  The problem is that I've depended on him to be my (sole) social outlet for the past 3 years (less the past couple of months when L and D gave him a little "break").  Throw in the fact that he has a whole different work and travel schedule, and is admittedly less social than I am, and the result is that I would end up doing a lot of this stuff by myself.  And that, my friends, is definitely no fun.

OK it's not that we don't get invitations to do things or we haven't been on "couple dates" with other people.  But just like real dating, you can't force a relationship just because you're the same age or you live in the same town or you have certain things in common.  And unfortunately, the people that I could really "piss time away" and enjoy exploring the area with happen to be...not here.

At least it has gotten to the point where people have stopped telling me that I'm just not trying hard enough. Believe me, I have tried it all.  But besides that, I don't think ANYONE should compromise what they look for in a friend, right? The truth is that it's a small town. Period. In a city you have millions of fellow residents and maybe get close to a handful of people to call true friends.  Percentage-wise that doesn't bode well for a town of a few thousand.

I've mentioned before how surviving cancer is a blessing in that it makes me really appreciate just being ALIVE and having love in my life.  So I do feel selfish when I want more. The "curse" of cancer (besides the obvious) is that I made a promise to myself that I would not waste any more time...wasting time. Or existing. Or being in an unhappy situation.  So when I do find myself having a bad day or week I really beat myself up and put pressure on myself to DO SOMETHING to change it. And that's not always possible.

So what do I do? Look for a sweet escape...either literally or figuratively. Skip town (see ya soon, DC!), go for a walk, watch some guilty pleasure TV show, read a book, do sudoku, clean the house, clean the dogs, go workout, take a nap...

I know people would love to have as much "free time" as I do. I KNOW I have a lot of wonderful, positive things in my life.  But sometimes you just have to vent. And escape. And throw things out into the black hole of the internet...