To trudge: the slow, weary, depressing yet determined walk of a man who has nothing left in life except the impulse to simply soldier on.
- Geoffrey Chaucer, A Knight's Tale.
This quote is my life right now.
I trudge.
Being back in Idaho is hard.
Idaho is dull. Idaho is boring.
Idaho is very brown/dead.
Idaho is full of Republicans.
I didn't realize I'd become such a liberal.
The nephews are great. I have work, for which I'm thankful.
If a day goes by that I don't cry... well, that hasn't happened yet.
It feels like I've lost everything. I know, somewhere, that I haven't, but...
words cannot explain, I suppose.
Just lost.
Out of place. That's how I feel. I use words that make people laugh here.
Like mobile and toilet and flat.
I say charades (sha-rah-des) instead of charades.
I lost Ovis.
I suppose that sums it up. I feel that I've lost... me.
I miss Scotland. I miss my friends.
I don't want to become some miserable person who complains all the time.
Who lives solely in the past. Like the mother in North and South who slowly wastes away
and dies out of spite because she had to move.
I see this. I recognise it.
Yet, everyday there is heartache and tears and longing.
Maybe it's a grieving process.
I do not pretend to understand.
Today I was reading an article about Harry Potter that mentioned this scene:
It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.
I can see why someone could go mad. I could see wasting my life away.
Which is why I try not to look at pictures of my time in Scotland.
It still aches.
One of the students in a class I'm subbing for brought me a book of Scotland (a really old book) and had me point out the pictures of places I've been.
Luckily, it didn't hurt as much as I feared it would hurt.
I recognise I could simply live in the past.
That is not what I want to happen.
So I'll keep trudging. I'll try to save up money to return.
I'll keep that thread of hope that I'll get to go back.
Someday.
It'll get better, Stacey. It may be tough now, but it will get better.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if this will help or not, but I miss Idaho! I thought it was one of the most beautiful places on Earth! Though you are right about the republicans.
And I saw on the weather today that you'll have a white Christmas! ...I won't. Not in NYC or Austin (where I'm visiting family). I'd give my right eye for a white Christmas. (I chose the right cause it's the one I'm blind in - hehe)
Sending you loving thoughts. Just keep trudging and you'll get out of that muddy spot soon.
Thanks, LS! I'm not sure if we'll have a white Christmas, but I hope so!
ReplyDeleteI think sometimes parts of life are like this, no matter where you are. But you're right, you just have to trudge through them in order to get to the more awesome parts. Maybe it'll be Scotland, maybe it'll be some place or circumstance totally new.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I would hold out for the summer. Summer in Idaho? Pretty amazing. Not a bad place for summer.
Thanks, Val. That is true. Summer in Idaho is pretty cool. I have no idea if I'll still be here.
ReplyDeleteThank you for posting this Stace... I'm pretty much trudging as well. I'm at home.. working to save up money to be able to survive alone... but that seems to be my end goal at the moment. Then what? I would love to be back in the UK... but I'll settle for knowing where I should be in the next 6 months. I've given myself until the 4th of July to live with the family, and then I want to be an adult again... and Cali doesn't feel like home anymore. I'm trudging, and doing so without a social life other than my immediate family members. I just don't feel like me... I've lost me too... and I don't know where I've gone.
ReplyDeleteI love you Stacey and know that the adventurous times will return, but there is most likely something that both of us can learn whilst we are trudging. xxx