Survivor’s guilt

To quote LOLcats, I gots it.

Stupid, sure. Illogical—definitely. And yet I still feel guilty that I landed this fantastic job doing the kind of work I love while so many of my friends remain unemployed. And let’s bring it even closer to home.

Kent’s job ends a week from tomorrow. He loved the work he did and the field he was in, and his reviews and bonuses showed the company thought the same about him. But then the business plan changed and poof—bye bye entire business unit. Watching him go through this has been like watching someone I love go through a divorce he didn’t want. And while he’s getting a job divorce, I just got a job marriage.

Or maybe it’s like announcing a pregnancy to friends who can’t conceive. Whatever the analogy, I’m really trying to shed the guilt because God knows I didn’t just sit around eating bon bons while job searching. I needed and wanted a job in my field.

How do you handle false guilt like this?

This and that

I have a post written in my head about how important a sense of place is. I even started counting how many times I've moved in my life and stopped at 28 because that's a hell of a lot of moving. I've thought through how different it must be to actually BE from someplace. But the post remains unwritten because since I started this job, the kitties (by which I mean Wally) have decided that 4:30 is not a good wake up time, I should get up at 3:30.

Seriously I'm about to wring his little neck. Right now he's curled on my lap, purring and making bread with his paws which is very sweet. But I want that hour back. I think 4:30 is plenty early for a wake up.

There’s no place like home

I’ve lived in Boston about 18 months now, and mostly felt as though I’m just sort of visiting for a long time. It hasn’t felt like home. Not in the sense where I’m glad when my plane lands just because I’m in Boston—obviously I’m always glad to be back with Kent and the kitties. But to be glad because I’m in Boston? No, I haven’t experienced that yet. In fact, except for one time on the roof deck of the bed and breakfast Brad and Kerry stayed in last August, I haven’t even thought Boston was all that pretty. (By the way, that B&B is directly across the street from our place.)

Monday night as I drove home from the first day of work in New Hampshire, I saw the city from 93 heading south down a pretty long hill. The skyline was framed and the buildings were lit because it was dark, and I actually caught my breath. It reminded me of driving into Kansas City from the west along I-70—the first time you see the skyline, it’s just really pretty. As a quick aside, it always makes me think of Frank Baum and the Wizard of Oz since somewhere I heard or read that he modeled Oz after Kansas City. I don’t know if that’s true or not, although I’d like it to be.

Anyway—I’m still not sure how much I love Boston or how much like home it feels. I’ll find out in about 10 days because I have a business trip to Washington, D.C. I’m interested to see if I’m glad to be in Boston then, or if it’s still only that I’m glad to be with Kent.

Where are my slippers?

After 25 months, I’m back among the fully employed. I was underemployed (love that term) for 12 months and flat out unemployed the rest of the time. The adjustment has been about what I expected—I’m tired, my brain is full, my feet want to know where my slippers are and I’m getting used to driving a lot again.

I thought I’d be able to work out at night when I get home from work but that’s just not the case. Let’s face it, I’m wired as an early bird, I’ve been that way since I was a teen and even when not working, the latest I “slept in” was 6 AM. Since I need a solid eight or nine hours of sleep every night, that puts me to bed around 9. Now that I’m getting up a lot earlier, my bedtime has shifted too. When I get home, Kent and I eat dinner and I’m in bed about an hour later. So I don’t have time or energy to work out at night. I’ve shifted my wake up time to a half hour earlier so I can get a work out in before I go to work. It’s always been far easier for me to get up a half hour earlier than to stay up even five minutes later.

I’m also learning a lot at work, both about the processes, the clients and how we work with them. My start date came at a really good time since we’ve got the adjunct faculty (who work with our clients) in for a two day workshop. I’ve had a chance to meet those who attended and I’ve started getting a better sense of who they are and how they operate.

We were on tap to get a lot of snow yesterday, so I prudently packed an overnight bag just in case I needed to stay in Portsmouth. Mayor Merino (Boston) declared a snow emergency for yesterday a day early and we got pretty much no snow. Because of the snow emergency though, my commute home yesterday was the easiest yet—no traffic at all!

More about Jamaica

We got there too late on Monday to sign up for any of the things that required sign up a day in advance, like snorkeling or the glass bottom boat tour. So Tuesday we took a sailing lesson instead and then went sailing in the bay for a while. I also went to yoga late that afternoon—that’s about as close as I’ll get to bikram yoga since it was held outside on a shaded deck area. While it was warm, the tropical breezes kept things pretty comfy and being outside was really nice. I found I didn’t want to be in air conditioning while I was there, except to sleep.

Wednesday we took a wind surfing lesson. If you’ve never tried wind surfing, I will say it’s pretty tough. You balance on the windsurf board taking into account the pitch and yaw of the water plus you have the mast, boom and sail which can move in any direction at all (except of course directly under the windsurf). I was very proud we tried and even though I didn’t master it, I sure had fun.

We booked a couples massage Wednesday afternoon which was perfect timing after the windsurfing that morning. Like the yoga, the spa area wasn’t air conditioned and it was very pleasant with the breezes. We were both pretty dopey after that.

Wednesday night we had dinner at the one restaurant with a dress code which also required reservations. The restaurant had a few two-top tables and then some four- and six-top tables. When Kent made the reservations, he was asked what we preferred for seating. My husband knows me well so he asked for a six-top table. He figured a four-top was sort of a gamble because we might end up sitting with two very shy people, but with a six-top we would have a better chance of having good dinner companions. And we really lucked out—we had dinner with two couples from New Jersey. June and Peggy have known each other since kindergarten, and in fact June and her husband Charlie set up Peggy with Joe. They really made my birthday dinner very enjoyable—we laughed so much and had such a great time with them. The picture is of the birthday cake our server arranged once he realized it was my birthday. I also got another cake in our room, so we had plenty of cake.

Thursday we took the glass bottom boat tour in the morning, and then that afternoon we went snorkeling. The water was pretty choppy by then so we both got water in our snorkels a few times which was disconcerting. We got the hang of things pretty quickly and saw all sorts of fish and coral and sea urchins plus a small stingray. Others who snorkeled with us saw some barracudas too, but we weren’t snorkeling where they were so we missed it.

We didn’t take a lot of pictures while we were there, mostly because we were so busy doing nothing. You’ll just have to take my word for it that we had a wonderful time and we’re already trying to figure out how to go back.

Wally's bedtime ritual

This video shows what Wally does pretty much every night. In the first part, he's rabbit kicking my feet. Sometimes he bites the covers when he does that. Then you'll see Kent's fingers wiggling the covers so Wally will jump. After he does that a few times, he goes and sits at the end of the bed and then wanders up toward the lamp on Kent's side as if to say "I'm all done, turn off the light now."

Fantastic

Sadly, we returned to reality late Friday. I’ve never gone to an all-inclusive place before, and wasn’t sure what to expect. All I can say is this was the most relaxing vacation I’ve ever had, and part of it was being at an all-inclusive.

I’ve heard that some all-inclusives don’t really include everything, but this one did. Sure there were two or three additional activities that cost more, but they were clearly different. For example, snorkeling was included—and if you wanted to go on a night snorkeling trip, that cost $35 extra per person. But the normal snorkeling didn’t cost anything extra. If I recall correctly, fees for scuba diving didn’t kick in until you were scuba diving for certification, otherwise that too cost nothing.

So we took full advantage of the water sports and went sailing on a Hobie Cat, took a wind surfing lesson on Wednesday (very hard but very fun), went on a glass bottom boat tour, and snorkeled. We also got in plenty of time at the beach. We were prepared to stay pool side if that’s where the better shade was, but the beach had trees which cast good shade while the pool’s umbrellas were pretty small.

I’m off for my first day of work today so I’ll post more tomorrow about our trip. Just know it was an amazing vacation and we hope we can go back sometime.