Alrighty, time to play catch-up! And my friends, we have a LOT of ground to cover. So if you’ll forgive my hasty hello, let’s just dive on in to 2012, shall we? Starting from the beginning . . .
On the first day of February in 2012, I announced my sabbatical from blogging. Well honestly, at the time I wasn’t sure exactly what it was. But now, almost exactly one year later, I think “sabbatical” is fairly accurate.
sabbatical year
noun
1. Also called sabbatical leave; a year of release from normal duties, as for study or travel.
Yes, I think that’s just the right word. Here’s what happened next . . .
Winter in P-town is pretty bitter, but you do what you gotta do to get outside. February saw lots of playdates with our best pals, all scarlet noses and frozen knuckles:
And to be honest, February was really tough. Winter is so draining on the psyche. I was desperately trying to de-stress (oxymoron?). I was very sick, still with no clue what was going on. I had just quit blogging, something that I truly loved, in pursuit of answers and maybe some peace.
I knew that I needed to cut out all the extraneous stressors, all the unnecessary obligations. Bring everything down to the bare minimum. Start from scratch. Rebuild.
Paring down seems like a simple ambition, but it’s much more difficult in practice. I knew that things needed to change – really change – but I was so caught up in my routine. That routine had kept me anchored through the chaos of my over-ambition, but now it was only weighing me down. I would get to the end of each day, determined to get some work done in the quiet of night; clean out my inbox and tie up loose ends, so that I could really start fresh.
But instead I would just eff off. Every. Single. Night. In February I watched tv and surfed the web, crocheted a rag rug out of old sheets, and generally ignored the main cause of my stress (all those little loose ends). In retrospect I think I just really, really needed to decompress, but at the time it was frustrating because I still had that constant nagging anxiety of unfinished business.
But mostly, life ambled on. Waits continued to be delightfully adorable and fantastically awesome. Early in the month he discovered chlorella tablets.
And finally, I found some time to dye my hairs! In progress:
And finished:
At the end of the month I got to see my very favorite satyrical lady rapper Leslie Hall perform live – and in the company of the fabulous Miss Kittee, no less. It was only my second night out on the town since Waits was born, and man, I needed it!
But like I said, mostly February was sort of a limbo: wanting to settle down and simplify // feeling restless and unsettled and unsure of what to do. Yeah, winter can be bitter in Portland.
At least I had this guy to keeping me smiling . . .
March coming soon . . .
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