Mixed Feelings on My Corner of the World

Confession: I hate posing for photos. Always have. Pictures of me typically date a few months apart. So posting a photo of myself outdoors right now would be a tall order even if my cell phone were working and my camera weren’t buried in the closet. So, here’s a photo from Budapest instead.

Other confession: I kind of hate where I am right now, and feel phony sharing its special snowflake-ness.

Over the past two months, work and home have flipped completely upside down, giving me mixed feelings at best about Charlottesville.

After a huge flurry of fall activity, which absorbed much of my evenings and weekends and left me completely emotionally drained, my boss suddenly had to resign. I’m now the only employee at my company, and I’m still officially part-time with no benefits.

What’s worse is I feel guilty for not being able to handle it, and for seeking out other opportunities.

Meanwhile, a persistent leak in my roof has been wearing away at my apartment and belongings the way work has been wearing away at my soul.

I wish I had gotten serious about long-term travel sooner. I’m well on the way to my goals, but I’m not there yet. If I had been diligent from the first day I thought “Maybe that’s the right path for me,” I’d be done by now and could afford to take off.

Some will write it off as ungrateful or selfish, but being able to leave – that’s what makes home special to me.

Whenever I come home from travel, I’m always struck by how beautiful home is. That’s the magic of travel. It doesn’t just make the strange familiar, but makes the familiar strange. It’s a refresh button for your life. And boy do I need a refresh button.

Charlottesville itself is a tourist destination. The hiking, the craft beverage industry, the arts and culture festivals, Monticello and UVA… the list of attractions goes on. We’re even on the World Heritage Site list.

So when I have months like these past few, when it seems like everything that could go wrong does, and I feel mired in a place I’ve outgrown, it’s nice to have a reminder that home is special in its own right.

Once I actually left for my RTW trip, I realized the job I was struggling with when I wrote this post was actually an abusive relationship.