Day #193: I Miss Fresh Air

 Socked in with smoke 2 days in a row. Kids climbing the walls. Ended up going for a drive just to get out, drove Highway 2 towards the mountains (not that far.)

Josh was reminiscing about early times he took that drive, before me, when he was new to Washington. I was thinking of what I was doing in those years. For I think the first time, I feel REALLY disconnected from the person who had those adventures.

One adventure leads to another. In 1999, when I was 20 and tired of school I decided to take a break so I took a 4 month seasonal job in Iowa. EVERYONE thought I was insane. Out of a desire to travel cheap and see the world I was living in, I took a Greyhound bus to get there. Several, in fact, on a Greyhound bus trip from Seattle, WA to Cedar Rapids, IA. I turned 21 in Iowa. Had adventures. Saw the Field of Dreams (there were 2, in those days, the land was divided between 2 family's property's and they HATED each other, so there were 2 gift shops, etc. The first time I ever went to Chicago was with a group from that job. Celebrated my 21st birthday in St. Louis seeing Bette Midler in concert. Flew home by way of North Carolina to see a friend in the days when you still bought plane tickets from travel agents. 

Iowa was a big deal for me and did assert my independence, but when I got home I went back to school, finished my undergrad degree, and got a regular old post college job with benefits. If I had a regret it would be doing that and not allowing myself at least one summer post college to do more camp and put off grown up life just a tad longer. However, had I done that, I probably wouldn't have had the adventures that came next.

All the way over my social services job that was dying anyway, when a friend told me she was headed to New Hampshire in summer 2002 to be a camp director and needed and assistant director, I grabbed that job. To this day probably the most challenging job I ever had in all the best ways. We drove my 1997 Toyota Corolla all the way to New Hampshire and back.

I worked with two international camp staffing agencies who sent staff to us that summer and by far the one I preferred was BUNAC. So over the months that followed, when I had itchy feet and no permanent plan, I looked into BUNAC's cultural exchange programs that would be available to me, and that's how I ended up in New Zealand.

I was in New Zealand on working holiday, which meant my visa allowed me to get a job and I did a bunch of things...traveling, waiting tables at a cafe, doing some light farm work in exchange for room and board. I was in New Zealand for 6 months until I ran out of money and headed home. 

I've done some traveling since then...went to visit a New Hampshire camp friend in Wales in 2008, that was my really big trip...but by 2004 I had my first "real" library job and since then it's been work, then grad school, then more work, then motherhood. My passport expires in January and I've never used it except to get across the Canadian border a few times. But I've always felt connected to that person, to that world traveling adventurer.

2020 is the first time I feel super disconnected from her. I don't know why, exactly, if it's just I've reached a certain age or if it has something to do with the world situation of now. If the world is ending, I am glad I had those adventures and took those trips. I have no regrets about it. But I do feel very very far from that person and today that's making me feel sad. I don't know what I need to do to reconnect with her...but I want to reconnect with her.

Media consumption: there are so many episodes of Frasier! It's very binge able but I'm getting to the point where I'm going to have to pick something new.

I read a bunch of stuff on Friday...a book on poetry writing for kids by Juan Felipe Herrera and another book of his about 9/11. And then yesterday I started a book called Sleepaway Girls which is about camp, It's kinda meh and may actually be contributing to my current mood so maybe I should let it go but I'm so close to finishing it now...I dunno.

Today I'm grateful for my husband, my memories, my kids and their snuggles, and that tomorrow is a new day and hopefully will bring relief from the smoke.