leave of absence – My Forties Reboot

All Good Things…..

I have come to the end of my leave of absence. Well, the last official day was June 2nd but today is my regular day off so we are counting today. I went into this thing with big plans and a schedule to keep, but as per usual with everything else in my life, nothing ever goes according to plan.

I wanted to blog about what I accomplished each day and keep myself accountable and do what I set out to do. I wanted everything in my life organized, clean and neat. Anyone who knows me or even knows what a creative person is like (or most of them that I know anyway), that is a fantasy. I am, by nature, a disorganized person, whose life is full of clutter. I always have the best of intentions, but we all know what the road to hell is paved with.

I also wanted to take control of my health and plan and prep my meals and eat only healthy things and stop eating out (CupBop Korean Barbeque will be my downfall). And excercise every single day. I wanted to establish new and better habits. Again, that road to hell.

Something unexpected that did happen while I was on my leave of absence was that my Etsy store got more orders in the last 30 days than I have gotten in the last year. That kept me pretty busy, but the kind of stress free busy. I love painting and all the orders, save one, were hand painted glass or tea set orders. Those are blissfully calm and therapeutic for me.

I didn’t read, sketch, clean or organize the way I wanted to. I didn’t make a single piece of jewelry. I didn’t walk or hike. There is a lot I didn’t do.

What I did accomplish, if you can call it that, is a new found love (albeit frustrating at times) of fishing. The main frustration for me is that my reel is different than the one I used when I was 13 and tangled my line a lot. I didn’t catch any fish, but my boys did. We have plans over the summer to try and go once a week.

I had lots of down time with my kids with great conversations, a few meltdowns and plenty of take out dinners. We failed miserably at fishing. We got on each others nerves, argued some and spent plenty of nights driving for Uber eats and listening to good and less than stellar music.

We suffered through a crappy last month of online school with plenty of tech problems and failures of communication. We celebrated good news for my son who has ADHD, when our (his dad and I) advocating for him and taking on the school resulted in getting what was best for him. I do not like confrontation and would just as soon walk away rather than attack, but I used my voice and I was not nice when I needed to be not nice and walked away feeling kind of badass. I realized that fighting isn’t always a bad thing when you are fighting for what is right for someone you love.

I napped when I wanted to nap, we went for drives when we got bored and pretty much did whatever we wanted every single day.

I came into this leave of absence stressed, worried, exhausted, angry and fighting off depression. I had one month to do whatever I wanted. An unpaid vacation. We really didn’t accomplish anything by society’s standards or what mine used to be. Probably still are, but for one month they were forgotten. I am coming back to work a much more relaxed, calm and content person. I am looking forward to having a normal schedule again. There is still the possibility that I may get furloughed come October and I am at peace with that. I don’t believe that God brought me this far just to take it away. But if that is the plan, then so be it. I hope not, but I am at peace with whatever happens. Until then I will do my job, plan for the worst and keep hoping for the best. And I will keep doing things that make me happy. And, damn it, I am going to catch a fish.

May something, day whatever

So, at this point I have pretty much tossed the calendar. I don’t think I have completed any of my daily goals. I don’t think. I know I haven’t. And I don’t care. I can’t tell you what I have actually done other than paint tea sets and custom glass orders from my Etsy store, hang out with my kids, drive for Instacart and Uber Eats and relax.

I have only cooked dinner a few times. Take out is easier. I bought myself a stand mixer so that Aidan and I could make bread twice a week. Until today, I hadn’t even taken the mixer out of the box. No jewelry made. No art completed. Each of my rooms with organization on the agenda are in various stages of completion but none of them actually complete. I have read a book once, maybe twice (?). I have been in touch with friends pretty regularly.

In the last week or so, we haven’t gone anywhere or done much of anything. It has rained so much that we haven’t really been able to fish and several of the places that we wanted to visit are not open or have limited availability. For example, we wanted to visit a local opal mine where you can rent the proper equipment and go into a mine, break rocks and find opals. My kids have been talking about doing that for years, but the mine is not open to the public and what is available is rocks that you can purchase and sort of do the same thing. Same but not really. Being given a pile of rocks is not the same thing and kinda takes the purpose and fun out of it.

With restrictions finally starting to be lifted here in Idaho (ours were rather lax in the first place) I was able to get together with one of my besties and her fiance and have a game night. We played Cards Against Humanity, laughed a lot and made a lot of inappropriate jokes. We ate ice cream together and played some other games and it was amazing. I missed hugging my friend and getting together with the both of them. I love them. They are good humans and so much fun to be with. Lots of sarcasm, snark and dissing. I missed that so much.

I have about 10 days left on my leave of absence and I have very little to show for the time that has passed. We missed lots of opportunities to fish and do road trips because of the weather so we are going to try and fit as much of that into the last few days as we can. I will force myself to finish organizing something and clean. Something. As much as I want to get everything done, the inability to follow my own schedule has actually been a blessing. I am far more relaxed than I was. I am much more at peace with where I am and what might be coming. I am looking forward to returning to work and doing the job that I love. And getting an income again. I miss my work friends and helping people. I am ready to go back to my normal life. With a much lighter load on my shoulders. But, I still have 10 days and I need to fill them up.

May 5-7, Days 4-6

I am not even sure I tried to accomplish much of anything on these days. In all honesty most of it is a blur. On May 5th, we still had our guest so we pretty much hung out at the apartment and I cooked dinner. His parents were not going to be back in town until very late so he stayed an extra night with us. We had plans the next morning, but we ended up adjusting them to accommodate for returning him back to his house before we left.

We left about 2 hours later than we wanted to on the 6th–about 6:15 a.m. instead of 4 a.m. and headed out toward Anderson Ranch Reservoir. We had plans for freshly caught salmon for dinner that night. Again, like most of my plans, these did not quite go right. The drive to Anderson Ranch was beautiful. I often forget just how beautiful it is here and it is nice to have a reminder once in a while. Once we got to the reservoir, we drove for quite a while trying to find a creek to fish from until we finally gave up and headed for the “campground”. I put that in quotes because the so-called campground is nothing more than a gravel and dirt turn off with a little bit of flat parking space to fit a few vehicles or campers in there. There really isn’t a great place to fish so the three of us crowded each other while we cast our lines into the water. Tangled lines, lost lure/hooks and a lot of frustration later, we gave up and moved on further down the road trying to find a better place to fish. We drove all the way to pine but the area my son was thinking of was not available so we went another route with no luck. A guy camping with his family gave us a tip on a good place to fish so we headed there. Got there and a storm front was moving in and the wind was so strong, we gave up on that location too. My 16 year old, who had essentially planned the whole itinerary, took the hiccup in plans very hard and it took him a while to let the upset go. We listened to music and I tried to reassure him that it was merely a hiccup and we could try again and in the meantime we could find something else to do.

We finally decided that once we got to Boise we would go to Black Rock Coffee, something we haven’t done in a long time. That seemed to appease some of the disappointment and his request to drive through the North End of Boise seemed to appease the rest. The North End is probably my favorite place in Boise–beautiful old homes, tall trees, well manicured yards. It was a very nice drive. We headed home with no real plans and did take out for dinner. Again. One of my goals was to cook every night, but that just hasn’t happened.

Thursday, the 7th the boys went to their dad’s house so the morning was pretty chill and uneventful as was my evening. My etsy store had gotten 4 orders all within a couple of days so I spent a lot of time working on those and other projects. None of my cleaning/organization plans got done. Friends were not contacted. Reading, art and jewelry not completed.

After last year and working nearly seven days a week most of the year (regular job, Uber Eats and Postmates), I am finding this break to be just what the doctor ordered. My sleep schedules is becoming a lot more normal and I don’t feel like I need to sleep every moment of the day. I am feeling a lot less pressure and I am just more at ease. Being a working single parent comes with a lot of responsibility and a lot of self neglect and very often a lot more work than an intact family, just because you are doing everything on your own instead of sharing the load with an equally invested partner. Sometimes you just need a break and they don’t come along like this very often. The circumstances aren’t the best but I am thinking it could be a blessing in disguise for us. Even with the hiccups and set backs and so-called failures. I can live with those.

May 2-4, Days 1-3

I came at this leave of absence with a LOT of expectation on myself and what I was going to accomplish. Well, let me tell you, it is not starting out well. Nothing has gone according to plan, but that is not a bad thing.

I have been through some awful bouts of depression and with all the stress of 2020 so far, I can see it working and weaving its way into my brain and my life. The constant need for sleep, the condition of my apartment, my absolute lack of motivation to do anything and the lack of interest in doing things that I love are big fat boulders of a wake up call being lobbed at me. The whole idea of making up a schedule and sticking to it was me trying to force depression away. I have accomplished very little in the first 3 days, but I am not entirely sure that is a bad thing. I mean, my first thought was that right off the bat I was a failure. I was failing miserably at everything I had set out for me to accomplish, but that so called failure is actually anything but and I will explain.

The night before my leave of absence was to start, I got a call from a friend in sort of a predicament. He was on day one of a road trip with his family–his wife and all but one of his kids. Child care fell through for him and his 11-year-old was on his own. I cannot even imagine how scary and stressful that would be as a parent. So, with no one to take care of his kiddo, he called me. And of course I couldn’t say no. So, I jumped in my car and went to go pick him up from his house. Now, I will admit that my selfish brain that only wanted to spend time with my kids for the entire 30 days, started to remind me of all the scheduled stuff that was going to be messed up. How was I going to accomplish everything I had planned with this being thrown into the mix? I didn’t even know this kid so we were both going into this blind and uncertain. Sometimes it is hard to remember that when something drastic like this happens, there is usually a reason and, in this case there was and I will elaborate in a minute.

So, not only was I taking care of another kiddo, but there were animals that needed care as well–a dog, a cat, some ducklings and chicken eggs that were getting ready to hatch. I was still in my “how am I going to do everything on my list” state of mind and the responsibilities kept mounting.

Day 1: What I found was that this kid was super sweet and smart and could not wait to meet my boys. He talked my ear off (something I am familiar with having a talker and being a talker myself). I did manage to start my chore for the day (reorganizing my studio), but today is day 4 and I am still not finished. I read for an hour, I cooked dinner and I reached out to a friend. The friend is one of my favorite people from my former job. I love her. She is amazing. She was my first supervisor at that job and it was my first in 11 years because up until then, I had been a stay at home parent. I was in the process of divorce. She knew what I was going through and made it clear that if I needed anything, to let her know because she and her husband would be there for me. And she was. She is the kind of person that would give you the shirt off her back or her last dollar if you needed it. She would also kick anyone’s ass that messed with her and her family, and she extended that willingness to me. She is a hard worker and a kind person. I have been talking to her for a few weeks after about a year and a half of nothing (what can i say? Life.) Her husband was diagnosed, in the middle of this pandemic mess, with lung cancer that had metastasized. She reached out to me first and I am so glad that she did. I forgot how much I appreciate her presence in my life and I don’t want to let that connection lapse again. More than anything, I want to bring her coffee and give her a big hug. So I reached out to her. I don’t talk to her as often as I should or would like to, but that is hopefully changed.

Day 2: I didn’t do much of anything. My boys came home from their dad’s house. Guest kiddo was excited. He had repeatedly how excited he was to meet my kids. So, when they got home, we went to take care of the animals (twice that day). My youngest is all about animals so he absolutely loved being there. He played with the ducklings (a first time for him) and loved on the dog (who is a totally chill sweetheart) and fed the cat. Aidan and I made gluten free pretzel bites which were quite tasty, but a pain in the butt to make. Anything gluten free is a challenge. I did little else and we ate at Qdoba instead of cooking. I watched the kids interact with each other and play Mario Kart 8 and Minecraft. It was a very chill day. I did work on my studio a bit and started organizing one of the kitchen cabinets (not on the list). I reached out to a former co worker. She was one of my favorite people there as well. We used to commiserate over our mutual nemesis that was always causing us so much trouble on the job. She was the kind of person I could trust which was nice. She was also the kind of person to drop everything and help you if you needed it, without a complaint. And we usually laughed our way through things.

Day 3: Nathan and I went out to do Instacart and ended up only doing one order. I was irritated that he took accepted the order without looking at the distance to drive because I don’t want to drive a long distance if the money isn’t good because I have to pay for my own gas and time is money. If I am driving a long distance, I am not accepting other orders. It turns out that the pay wasn’t super great and we had to drive all the way out to Notus which is about 18 miles away. We actually both enjoyed the drive out there and he has decided we need to drive out there again and go to a produce place and look at what they have. We came home and packed lunches and took off for Swann Falls. I wanted a picnic and Nathan wanted to fish. Most of the area was closed off so we got dirt and rocks to sit on and Nathan didn’t catch any fish. We decided that we would go to Eagle Island State Park so Nathan could try catching something there and our guest wanted to swim. We did Dutch Bros on the way and Aidan and I sat on a blanket in the shade and enjoyed the fresh air and sunshine. Nathan still didn’t catch anything. The plan for dinner was Take’n’bake pizza from a place called Poppi’s in another town–technically that is me cooking but doing zero work. It was closed so we did microwave meals and (thanks to a sweet friend who sent money via facebook) and got all the fixins for sundaes. I did manage to start packaging my handmade jewelry so that I can start listing it in my etsy store. That was not on the list but needs to be done. I had a friend reach out to me. Someone from work checking up on me to see how my LOA was going. She is also on an LOA and will be for much longer than me. I absolutely love her. She is like a sister and I haven’t even known her that long. We were in the same reservations class and started working for our current employer on the same day. She is everything I am not–graceful, beautiful and feminine and everything about her is soft and motherly. I am loud, clumsy and dress like a 13 year old boy. She is very often my voice of reason and would probably help me bury a body (ha ha). And as soft and feminine as she is, you mess with her kids and she will go gangster on you and mess you up. She is my go to coffee and complaint buddy. Did I mention that I love her? I did get to see another friend from work as well. She is the kind of person that would never think twice about helping someone in need. When you think about what Christian love and compassion is supposed to be, she is it. She always operates from a place of love. She and her husband are both such beautiful people. If she ever hears of anyone having a need of any sort, she is like a genie and it magically happens. Everything she touches becomes better. I am blessed to know her. She made me and my kids some masks, as that is our new requirement to do instacart and some of the places we frequent.

What I am learning is that you can’t schedule away depression. You can’t force it to leave. You have to chip away at it a little at a time. Erode it with things that matter. The trick is to take it easy on yourself and allow yourself a little bit of grace. I haven’t accomplished much, but I am breathing easier, laughing more and relaxing. Will I get all my stuff done? Eventually. Maybe. I have to remind myself that not doing something is not a failure and does not make me a failure. There are somethings that will make me better that aren’t on the list and I have to learn to give some of that up in favor of better things. I will still try to get all of the scheduled stuff done, but I will give myself room and permission not to.

A Much Needed Reset

Events as of late have effected each of us in different ways. I have introverted friends that are loving the current lockdown. It is their ideal situation to be holed up in the comfort of their own space. I have others that are super extroverted and are climbing the walls anticipating the end of our current quarantine/lockdown order. I am an ambivert. I am right in the middle with traits of both an introvert and an extrovert. I am a people person who loves to be out among the masses enjoying meeting new people and engaging in conversation. I loved to be plugged in to the public. I also love to be alone in my apartment, curled under a blanket reading a book or watching the latest series on Netflix (I highly recommend Raising Dion) or creating something colorful and fun and artistic. I function well in both. Most of the time.

The current situation is driving me batshit crazy. I am stressed in so many ways. I am worried about my job. I love my job for so many reasons. I love the company I work for. I love how they not only care about their customers, but they also care about their employees and want more than anything to take care of both. I work for an airline and they are one of the hardest hit industries right now. Even with government assistance, the industry is going to suffer and there will be a lot of belt tightening and adjustments made by all, including the possibility of furloughs and cutbacks. I am stressed about getting the stupid virus or my kids getting it or my parents and the possible negative outcome of it all. I am worried about bills and rent and money and my kids and homeschooling and the list goes on and on. For a more extroverted person, being cooped up in the house with no end in sight is maddening.

One of the measures my employer is taking is actively encouraging us to take unpaid leaves of absence to help curtail some of the expense of operation. I am a single mom with limited resources, but I do have a good bit of my tax return left plus the stimulus check to live on for at least thirty days so I put in for a 30 day leave of absence. The thought is both scary and exciting. Now, I know how my body and brain have responded to the current stress level. It is not great. I sleep most of my off time away. I am completely unproductive most days. I don’t like being unproductive, but I have been so damn tired. All. The. Time.

I am tired of being tired. I am tired of not having any energy at all. The lack of energy and lack of motivation and feeling absolutely overwhelmed is taking its toll and I don’t want it to be like that on my leave of absence. I don’t want to waste 30 days sleeping my life away, although the rest does sound appealing. I have lived through depression and I know where the overwhelmed, fearful, exhausted road leads. It is not a good place and will only feed itself. So, I decided that if my leave of absence were approved, I wanted to have a list of things to accomplish every day to keep myself from falling into the sleep trap and I will blog about it every day for 30 days and keep myself accountable. At the end of these thirty days, I want my life to be better. I want to be better than when the leave started. I want something to show for it. So, I sat down and decided what it was I wanted to do everyday. Things that make me happy, things that make me better and thing that get stuff done (like unpacking the boxes in the garage, left over from the move–a year ago).

So, my list:

Walk or hike 2 to 4 miles a day. Sleep is lazy. I don’t want to be lazy. It leads to weight gain and then to being more tired. I need to break that cycle and, for goodness sake, I live in Idaho and there are a ton of places to walk and hike where I can keep my distance from people.
Finish one piece of art per day. I have gone a horribly long time without making art and I feel the lack of it sucking pieces of my soul away. That feeds the tired as well. I want to force myself into the habit of doing what I love again so that it becomes habit.
Make one piece or one set of jewelry per day. I have an Etsy store (www.beadedfrog.etsy.com) that has been neglected for a very long time. I make jewelry all the time, but it goes into a case with all the other stuff I have made and almost none of it makes it into my Etsy store. I used to design beautiful pieces of jewelry, necklaces and bracelets, that had gemstone and crystal and appealing color combinations. Now I make earrings. I make them because they are easy. I miss the necklaces and bracelets so I want to find beautiful beads and make those again.
Make dinner every night. How this became an issue is beyond me. We fell into easy. We fell into the trap of ordering out. A lot. I dread the idea of counting all that we have spent because I lack the energy and motivation to cook dinner every night. That stops, most of it, now. I will cook with my kids when I have them. I will cook for myself when I don’t. I will get back into the habit of dinner every night.
Reach out to at least one friend per day. One of the things about working from home is that you fall into the trap of isolation. You don’t mean for it to happen, it just does. Being an extroverted ambivert kind of goes out the window when you are immersed in the comforts of home. Days go by and you realize that you haven’t left the house. Once you realize, you will take any kind of time away from the confines of home. Just a trip to the grocery store to get a gallon of milk is a welcome respite from isolation. Isolation makes you forget you have friends on the outside. They are still living and working and going through stuff and you are missing it all. I have two friends going through trauma right now that sort of woke me up. I need to be in touch with people.
Read one hour per day. Netflix has become a good and comfortable friend and it is much easier and a lot less taxing than having to visually absorb words and their context and meaning. When in the hell did that happen? I used to be an avid reader. I would devour books as quickly as I could. Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, Amazon Prime–they require zero effort on my part. That also feeds my current mental situation. I need to stimulate my brain, not numb it. It has been numb for far too long.
Sketch one hour per day. To keep my artist brain active and engaged, I need to be practicing and sketching every single day. I can’t remember the last time I picked up a sketch book or pencil and just put the pencil to paper. It is like any other skill. You need to work the skill to keep it and I am completely rusty.
Bake bread with Aidan. My fourteen year old has recently taken an interest in cooking and baking bread. I love that he wants to cook and experiment. I love that he seeks feeling accomplished through baking bread and making a meal. I used to enjoy cooking. I need to learn to love it again. Even with my food restrictions (no wheat, rye or barley), cooking can be fun and food can be tasty. I have grown bored with food and I need to rediscover culinary adventure.
Classwork. I am not in class, but my kids have another month of online school as their schools are closed indefinitely. I need to be engaged and making sure that they are checking in and working on classwork every day.
Road trips/fishing trips. I need to get out of the house, but I want to do it safely. Nature is a good way to take care of that need. We will be getting fishing licenses and equipment and we will fish once per week and we will also drive somewhere once per week. Crater Lake, Craters of the Moon, Swan Falls, etc. We have some exploring to do, and fresh air to breathe and sanity to recover.
Chores. I want to clean, scrub and organize my house from top to bottom. I want to tackle jobs that have been neglected. I want shit taken care of.

I will also be tackling other things. I have tea sets I need to finish painting, margarita glasses that need attention and so much glass I can paint. And yes, I will watch Netflix and Amazon Prime and Hulu and I will paint my nails and gripe about my hair needing color and a cut. I will complain about my neighbors making too much noise and I will try to relax and not stress so much. I will love on people the best I can at a distance. I need my life back. All of it. Everything that matters and has somehow been forgotten. Not just because of this virus, but that is what led to the avalanche of “what the hell am I doing with my life?!” No more. I am going to create the life I want where I am and when travel is possible again, I will be on a plane every chance I get, with a new appreciation of the gift that my life is and what I have created for myself. I am looking forward to my unpaid vacation and all its possibilities. Bring it on because I am ready and waiting. Anxiety be damned.