and yes i did totally steal that from Nick Jonas. As an aside as i was making sure that it was Nick and the title was correct, i found out that he had done a bunch of Youtube videos about making the album and on it he mentions meeting his eventual wife in a bit of a he might have goofed up kind of way. It was sweet and made me reflect on why i was hunting for the title. Some years i’m on autopilot and keeping things together is easy enough. Granted those don’t happen enough but they do happen. Last years was for fuck’s sake not one of those years. Getting into all of it in one post would take forever so i am going to break this up. Because it will be the most bleh to break down let’s start with relationships: romantic, friendships and work.
On the romantic front it was clear that things with my lovely Dutch friend were probably dead for good because they were going through some things they couldn’t share with me and i had hit my stop point. However, i had a trip coming up and at worst we’d try to see each other one more to see how that went and go from there. We spent a few moments together but it was interrupted by a few different things, one of which i will get to later, and not repeated so i flew home pretty confident in that being the last time we’d likely see each other even though i’m totally going back to The Netherlands especially now that i’m learning Dutch in earnest.
With Mr. Wolf we weren’t DOA yet but we were close. Because of all the craziness with the trip (and I should clarify here briefly the trip was me taking 15 students to two foreign countries and trying to make sure all the passports, hotels, airfare and the like were secured) and my mother and my job outside of the trip, i was fried. i wasn’t available to anyone that wasn’t immediately able to access me and i didn’t have the energy to try to be. My insomnia flared up and my stress was on 10 all the time and i was just exhausted. These were not things anyone could help me take care of so i just worked out, slept when i could, cried when i couldn’t and had the occasional drink. i wasn’t shocked when He made the call it was just after something else had blown up and i was not in a good place.
The other stuff that blew up was related to work and the trip. Something came up with a student and we needed to get them home. Cool my job makes us have a backup grown up (BAGU here on out) and i alerted them they needed to go as i met the student to get some new meds and get them to bed so i could get them on a plane. In the interim, BAGU called the job and downplayed the illness to our head trip supervisor (HTS here on out) who then said oh if it’s not that bad no one has to go with the student. THEN BAGU calls parents and says we are not sending anyone home with their sick child before speaking to me about it. This is crucial because everything else that happened could have been prevented. So as i go grab student to get them checked in for the flight i hear angry parents and am wondering why. It’s then i hear the BS that happened when i was trying to sit still for a minute. i assure mom that i will make sure child gets home safely but i need to get them checked in for the flight. That’s when the first of my non sleep nights started. i get a call from HTS who has gotten a call from two angry parents and is pissed they were lied to about the severity of the illness. i explain that i’m not alone and will call them back. HTS wants to talk to student, does and then tells me if one of the four grown ups on the trip is not on the next flight with student they are going to recommend some level of sanction against all of us. Bet now i’m pissed. Get student taken care of, rip all the other grown ups a new one but especially BAGU. Everyone makes the flight. BAGU keeps whining about going home a few days early and the student not wanting to talk to them while they traveled. To say it jacked up work relationships would be an understatement mostly because WW suck monkey balls and people break their necks to defend them except folks outside of my immediate space who were like said folks are lucky you didn’t leave them with a brothel and they were. At the time Mr. Wolf called to call things off, i was actively looking for a new job and on the verge of quitting without one because i hated damn near everyone around me. i haven’t quit yet but i’m actively looking despite my new promotion and other stuff going well at work–i’ll get to that in another part.
Finally, my friendships were interesting. i’ve made more grownup vanilla friends lol. They were good ears when the other relationships were imploding and short of the repeated threats of physical injury if i moved, i felt very loved on which i needed. The lack of other ties actually helped with my health and i made new friends during tennis classes. i started gathering the BW at my job together once a month when we could swing it to debrief, support each other and laugh a lot. And i started just trying things again. i cooked more, i signed up for Dutch classes and got an A thank you very much, and i decided to learn how to play the drums. i also indulged in a Oculus Quest that i hope is amazing cause i really wanna play Beat Saber and Vader’s Quest thingy. Life style friends are harder for me to come by because i’m not someone who really enjoys the events and other people have proven harder to trust. i’ve made one that i can bug about anything and she’s good people. So in the friendship realm this year was a win. Same with family even though i won’t make a new category for that. i love them, they love me. i got to spend more time with them last year and i loved that more than you know.
So yeah last year was complicated for real and this part is done.