Updates and Life

As you all know, life has turned upside down in the past few months, and writing has gotten hard for me. I don't know what to say because life is a groundhogs day marathon, but I wanted to write because this place is my memory bank, my record keeper, and for my future self, for Gwen (if she's interested) I want to having something here for what we were doing, thinking, and feeling during month 320 5 of COVID.

As I wrote before, my main yoga studio closed permanently because of COVID, but new since then is that the city decided to officially lay off all of its furloughed employees (which was a gut punch). Nothing really changed in my day-to-day because of that, but it was sad and hard to hit the "delete this and all future events" on my classes that I had been working so hard to build, including the one that had been my first official teaching gig. Whenever the city decides to restart classes, we'll be getting calls to see if we want to be rehired, but they are saying March at the earliest and they might not chose to bring them all back, so who knows. The only class I have right now, which I just started teaching last week, is a subbing gig that will only last until maybe October? So I'm working to rebuild. I just joined a doula on-call program, which I'm excited about, and I'm interviewing with potential doula clients. I added a online partner doula class, intended to help partners feel more comfortable and prepared for the labor room. I'm contacting tons of yoga studios to see who is looking, and hoping to get some more private clients. I also want to record classes to get online, in the hopes that I can get a little bit of "passive" income going, but that has proven to be one annoyance after another, so we'll see what happens. I'm hoping in the end this will mean some new amazing classes, and a schedule that is more purposeful and sustainable then my old one was, with an even better balance of yoga and doula.

Summer has looked pretty different. It has been very centered around our apartment. Gwen gets to play outside with some friends, and goes down to walk in the creek a bunch. We try to hit up the pool semi-regularly (they're doing a great job with 2-hour time slots, and capped admittance). Her days have looked a lot more like my old summers then our recent summers. I haven't been teaching, and we haven't been traveling. School is scheduled to start August 17 (Monday!), and as of when I scheduled this post, Gwen will be going in person. I'm completely torn on it with so many pros and so so many cons for all of the options. They might have - between scheduling and publishing - decided to start everyone remote, but as of this moment, they are set to go in person, with a staggered first week (so everyone can get used to the new guidelines in smaller groups). Gwen and I have had lots of talks about how in-person won't look the same as it used to, and that remote won't be as haphazard as it was at the end of last year, but both of us are dreading having to do virtual learning for our own reasons (which I'm assuming we'll have to do at some point). I guess my newly mostly unemployed status will be helpful there at least. (Yay?)

Trav and I have tried to do little special things with her, like the above hatchback picnic she and I did the other evening. Dinners with our "bubble family", ice cream desserts. And (yay for orthodontics), she lost a tooth the other day... all on her own, without getting "shark teeth" or having to have anything pulled.

Daisy probably deserves her own post, but to sum it up: the tumor she had removed from her foot returned. We won't be doing another surgery. There was only about 6 months between her original surgery with its hard and long recover, and the initial reappearance of the tumor. It is growing and spreading quickly, as anticipated, but we are trying a few things to see how much time we can give her. She is happy, loving, and otherwise nonplussed (other then her annoyance that we won't let her lick the thing); and we're hoping that we have as much furry, slobbery time with her as possible. (Please no armchair pet owners, everything we've decided has been in consultation with, and has the agreement of, her vet.)

My mental health was really, really bad for a while in there, because of everything above, plus our canceled summer trip, but also because of some old trauma coming up, combine with feelings I've been having surrounding my sexuality, and my purpose. That said, I've been seeing a new therapist for over a month now, and love them so so much. They are everything my old therapist wasn't, and I've already dove into so much more depth with them, then I have in all therapy before. It feels amazing, and I finally feel super heard. I still have bad days, but overall feel a lot more even keeled.

Overall, I'm trying to see this whole year as a burning everything down to reset and restart (a la our move to Colorado) vs a lost of 5 years of hard work and building. That's easier some day than others, but I'm trying!! And that is the mindset I'm trying to hold as I enter my own new year... turning 38 tomorrow! Happy Birthday to me, and here's to rebuilding with purpose in my own new year.