Can we go home again?

4:24 pm

It’s strange to feel emotional, like I do right now.  I haven’t really had powerful ups and downs since I quit drinking–over 6 years ago, it was wonderful to realize that it was the wine that was messing with my mood swings, not necessarily an underlying mood disorder (which I probably have, too!).  I’ve had even LESS emotions, in general, since going on the pill a few years ago (to “treat” my first bout of perimenopausal symptoms at the ripe old age of 41).  I’ve gone off it recently (oh, joy; who told me that you’d lose your hair?), and I can tell when things are just weird, as they are today.  Yet…

I’m bothered today, and I feel sad.  I was looking at pictures from just a few years ago, and noticed that I look younger then, and happier!  Is that because I was, or is the dry desert air messing with me?

We have decided to end our short (10 months) tenure in this city that we both can’t really stand–I have to say, I will never live in a place that is this dry ever again; if going off the pill wasn’t enough to kill my curls, spending 10 months in the desert definitely did in what was left of my hair AND my spirit!  Just kidding–sort of!  When it comes to this decision, it’s all good, but we don’t know where we’re going to move to yet!  While that doesn’t stress me out that much–we have some ideas, and I have a job that I can take with me anywhere–moving back to where we came from, which is one of our ideas, sort of does.

If looking at pictures of my old self sends me into my first crying jag in months, if not years; what will moving back to where it all started do?  By “all,” I mean all:  a new place, a new me, a new relationship, a new world view.  Can I move back and be able to appreciate the past while living in the present, and not be overwhelmed by a nostalgic longing for what was?

In recent pics, I look kind of sad, worn.  I have to ask myself, isn’t this a great case for us to go back to where we came from, if all I see now in our pictures is a certain lack of joy?  Yes!  At the same time, if we do move back, will I be able to stop pining for some nostalgic idea I have of what we were?  It’s not that we don’t have what we had then (we do); it’s not that I long to be young again (I don’t consider myself old), or to be in that place, personally (I can’t imagine feeling worse than I did in my early years of sobriety, in a way).  It’s this:  I want the newness of the joy, the fresh sense of a restart.  I mean, of course, I can get that again, but I will always know that in this place lives my past–a past that means a LOT to me, and that evokes a lot of feeling.

I have to remember, though, that I’m different, we’re different, and we’re on much more solid ground than back when we first started living together.  And, frankly, I do want to go back–that lifestyle was and is magical.  It’s just this pesky fear…of…something that I can’t quite name.

To add to that, I’ve also been wrestling with taking a job that I did 15 years ago–yes, crazy as it sounds, if I go back to this job, I will be doing what I was doing 15 years ago, and for the same boss!?  Most of me is an automatic ‘No,’ but the practical side of me says, why would you pass up a job offer like this, especially when you can do it remotely?  I have to decide by Tuesday.

Just a few months ago, it seems the entire world was waiting for us, for our adventure to begin.  Now?  I don’t know if I feel less optimistic or just tired of weighing the pros and cons of big life changes; if it doesn’t work out, nothing’s forever, right?

Still inhaling and exhaling over here; this is a hard time, one of much seeking–maybe even harder than getting sober, since at least then, all I had to do was one thing, not drink!  As I always told myself, and like to tell my closest friends:  the world rewards those who SEEK.  The world rewards those who put in that work, who LOOK for what they might need or want.  I am relying on this bit to get me through what appears to be another few months, maybe longer, of being patient with no decisions made, of being open to going with the flow.

Tags: change is hard, choices, decisions, going home again, going with the flow, hard decisions, hard work pays off, moving, patience