A photo from the courtyard of a gluten free bakery in Downtown St. Petersburg, Florida, taken during my trip in December 2021.
The mattress was hard, the walls were paper-thin, and water poured from the tub faucet while it was positioned "off." I slept like garbage the whole trip, but when my kids said, “I miss you," I could only respond with "I love you," for the first three days of my trip to Florida.
I desperately needed the break and time away from life and responsibilities for the first time in two years.
After moving to Seattle nearly four years ago, I was just starting to gain some of my independence back. While my kids were at school, I went out to coffee shops and wrote. I met fellow writers in Meetup groups, and we branched off and started our own.
Then the pandemic hit, and my new role was to co-teach my three children. I had to stop everything to put their education first.
As someone who never wanted children prior to my body choosing to subvert even double birth control measures, the pandemic set me into a huge mental and professional backslide. Add fear of a virus, infection, and [the threat of actual] death occurring outside our walls, complicated by chronic illness to boot, and the world became a terrifying place.
About a week after we pulled our kids out of school, Washington State closed all schools, and my doctor messaged me to say I should stay in our home with my [garbage] immune system until she later clears me for reintegration — thank you, mRNA technology! (I have anaphylactic reactions to traditional vaccines.)
The walls of our home felt like they were closing in on us as each new day passed, unsure if this virus was ever going to have an end-date.
I felt so ridiculous and ashamed and selfish that every day felt like a herculean task. I was unqualified to co-teach my children, but as time progressed — instead of complaining and crying all the time about my work being thwarted — I took the opportunity to observe my family and how we interact, and how my children learn.
We discovered Autism, and that my lifelong skin, gut and brain fog issues weren't strictly from Celiac, but a whole different disorder that temporarily going vegan and that the pandemic stress pushed over the metaphorical cliff's edge, and spiraled out of control: MCAS.
With everything, my fiercely independent self who halted professional progress for two years finally had a week "to myself” during the Florida trip.
It took four days for me to honestly say that I missed my family. Admitting that makes me feel like a terrible person, but can also easily forgive myself because that's just how I'm wired.
I love my family, but I’m a loner by nature. I was glad to get some time away.
I just wish it had been in a new place, under different circumstances, and in a properly labeled (four stars, my ass) and priced-for-what-you-get hotel where you don't ready to leave your non-refundable (my fault) room for breakfast after my first night of crappy sleep, only to reach for the door handle and get a strong waft of marijuana (is that legal in Florida now?, I thought) and a man shouting outside the door.
I hesitated as he continued to yell nonsensical words, then finally decided to poke my head out after hearing more male voices to discover two police officers trying to remove a homeless man who apparently camped out on my floor overnight….
I hate to admit that I chuckled after getting on the elevator thinking, and my dad criticizes Seattle's homelessness crisis. They’ve got a quarter of the population here, and I’ve yet to notice a difference in the quantity of unhoused people. (Just an observation, not a criticism of people’s circumstances.)
Still, with all the drama and the pain and the resurfaced trauma from my trip to Florida, the break from the everyday and the reconnections made are cherished.
I needed that. I think everyone needs a life-break once in a while. And I’m fortunate enough to have been able to get it for the first time in almost five years.
Now, I’m back home with my family and feeling grateful and loved.
I needed a break to reset, and I needed distance to clearly see what I have and what actually matters.
My best,
My best,
Sara
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Before I go, here are 5 more things this week:
- Binged Schmigadoon! on AppleTV+ with my husband in less than a week. It’s cute. (I love musicals.)
- Since it’s the end of the year (well, almost), I have to plug the Content Strategy Planner for any entrepreneur or individual thinking about creating an additional stream of income for you or your family. I know the pandemic has been hard on us all, and I’m grateful that I was able to create multiple streams of income as back-up for my family. I packaged my whole process into this all-in-one planner system. As one of my lovely customer’s put it: “I am shocked at how much this covers! It is like a course that helps to figure out what you actually want to write about … and then takes you forward like a little paper coach in your work bag.” And as a few other reviewers have said, it’s “way underpriced for what you get.” I know, I’m an idiot when it comes to pricing… but, I also want to help people. And pricing this planner to get it into more hands and growing their businesses (which equals positively impacting lives) is more important to me than earning a few extra bucks with each order. And if you’re an existing customer, thank you so much for your support! Since retiring the parent company for this product, I love knowing that this [recently updated] planner could go on to condense the best of Goff Creative into one “professional companion,” as another reviewer called it.
- The Unknowability of Other People’s Pain by Maura Kelly on The New York Times.
- The Joy of Writing By Hand by Nicholas Russell on the revived Gawker site.
- “The opportunity to step away from everything and take a break is something that shouldn't be squandered.” —Harper Reed