DONE.
I am done, I am spent, I am exhausted. This has been extremely difficult and I am beat down and defeated. It's hard to stay positive, optimistic, cheerful. I can no longer fake smile at people and say things are going good when they ask about my day in passing. I am used to the day to day challenges; the lack of electricity is a breeze, the lack of plumbing is a bitch, but showering at work or the rec center is a work around. These are the obvious struggles, but what is eating at me are the bits I internalize. Aside from the dust and the dog and cat hair and the pollen and mold growing in the camper are the thoughts in my head causing the lack of sleep and lack of appetite. I am constantly nauseous and tired. I cannot focus; my brain is elsewhere. I miss work, I do not see my friends, I do not interact with anyone.
Sunshine. Sunshine and my pets are on my mind all day every day. Sunshine has grown old, and while she is not in poor health exactly, she is in pain every day. She cannot get around. She cannot climb in and out of the car. This morning she could not even lean down to eat out of her bowl; she laid in the dirt. Her medicine helps, minimally. Living in a car is no life for a dog or a cat. They need to run and roam and be wild and free. My days can be dictated by the weather. The animals need to be either kept from freezing or kept from cooking in the sweltering sun. I constantly need to find pet friendly places to hang out, because that's all Sunshine can do, hang out.
Nollie on the other hand makes things difficult in her own way. She is the polar opposite of Sunshine in so many ways. Nollie needs to run wild for miles. She needs exercise, but Sunny can't. She does not like people she is fearful and would defend me to end of the earth. She guards the camper and the car. She chases off strangers on the trail and then crawls into my lap to be petted and comforted and told she did good. Nollie demands extreme attention yet wants everyone to ignore her. She gets in fights at the dog park and scares the crap out of little kids and adults alike.
Then there is my lack of hiking. The time spent juggling work and the dogs has left little time for the trail. Sunny can't join me and she can't be left behind. It's put a cramp on my hiking and backpacking which is my mental health cleansing activity. No overnight trips, no summit attempts, no long hikes of any kind. This also means no camping away from people. Town is getting increasingly busy as are all the 4wd roads and easily accessible trails. With the truck and the camper and the dogs we are restricted to easily accessible wilderness areas which mean, yay, we get to hang out with loads of strangers. Generally I head into the woods to get away from people, society, my own thoughts, and now we can't escape. There are people everywhere. This also cramps our style with Nollie, who as I've mentioned, needs to run, but can't handle the strangers, so now she needs to be leashed more and more often.
Maybe I'm putting too much stock in this house. I've for years had a dream of a little house with a yard. Nothing extravagant, but when I saw this place with the fence and the dog door, I knew it would be perfect. I want the dogs to run out the door and chase squirrels and not have to worry about them chasing strangers or being hit by a car. There would no longer be 3 flights of stairs for Sunny to struggle with and she could just hang out on the porch and relax in the sun with her nose in the air, or underground in a hole she's digging, enjoying the world. Sunny deserves to be a porch dog in her retirement, and it kills me to see them in the back of the car some days.
So no hiking on my own and no operating my hiking business either. The lenders are spying on me and I'm not making this shit up; I wish I was. I cannot be open for business. Next weekend is 4th of July, the busiest weekend of the summer, and I can't capitalize on it and make money. No classes, no trips, no rental equipment, no meal packages, hell, I'm not even allowed to update my travel blog about my final bits of my personal New Zealand trip months ago. I cannot answer my phone or return emails or advertise or update my website. At this point I'm pretty much ruined for a successful summer with Beyond Backpacking. Ugh. So dumb. They are still counting my debts from opening my business against me too, but won't let me operate to recoup any of those expenses.
Not just no hiking, but no vacations for me either. I always have to be accessible and in cell service and ready to access my financial files and documents and near a computer and able to respond to phone calls and emails quickly. So no headed into the wilderness, but no headed out of town either because no only do I need to be near this pertinent information, but I cannot use my credit cards. That means no plane tickets or long term planning. I missed my uncle's wedding, probably can't go to OBX in August because by the time I'm allowed to buy tix and leave town prices will be through the roof. I'm trying to plan travel to Bali or Costa Rica in the fall as well, or maybe join Kumar in Nepal as I've been planning for over a year. No booking a honeymoon either or planning my wedding.
That's right, the wedding, the one I may have to call off at this point, the one that is supposed to be in a few months, is totally on hold. As I said I can't use my credit card, so no buying anything, booking anything, putting a deposit on anything. I don't know how much closing on the house is going to be so I need to save every dime in my bank account, no big purchases of any kind. Also when this all began and we started looking at wedding venues and realized how absurd the pricing was we decided we'd rather spend our money on a house, that was more important to us, a place to live and raise a family for years as opposed to one day. We said that once we bought a house we could have a wedding in the yard. All we want is our family and friends to all come together, have a BBQ, hang out, see the beautiful mountains in which we live, and celebrate with us. I am running out of time. If there is no venue, there's no date, and I can't really set up anything else.
I want to have a family. It is no secret. Call it biological clock, or whatever you want, but it doesn't change the fact. I try and be responsible and right now I feel like I can barely take care of myself and my pets, let alone human kids. I think I should have a place to live first before bringing them into this world. I'd love a house, but really it's in part about living somewhere a bit more affordable because rent is astronomical. I need somewhere with 2 bedrooms where the second bedroom doesn't have roommates. I don't want roommates, I want a family.
These are the things that are eating at me every day. These are the things I am not talking about. These are the things that make me cry daily and make me angry because I work hard and try and do what's right and things are still a mess and I wonder where I went wrong. This house has been in the works since mid March, in many ways longer. In many ways it's been in the works since the day Clayton asked me to marry him. I've always wanted a house for the above reasons, but I needed someone crazy enough to want in on it with me, to share the dream of a better life. I put my condo up for sale January one and the madness began with regular showings and packing and cleaning and moving out and it hasn't stopped since, it just shifted into camper life. I don't know if we will ever close on this house. The lender continues to delay and the seller continues to want to back out of the deal. It just needs to end, to be done, one way or the other, so that we can live somewhere and move on with our lives. Hopefully it all works out soon, but it is still a day to day thing with no set closing date and no real end of the deal. The lender is still working the realtors are still working and I am still here, now a zombie, staggering around the mountains, hoping for a cure.
Sunshine. Sunshine and my pets are on my mind all day every day. Sunshine has grown old, and while she is not in poor health exactly, she is in pain every day. She cannot get around. She cannot climb in and out of the car. This morning she could not even lean down to eat out of her bowl; she laid in the dirt. Her medicine helps, minimally. Living in a car is no life for a dog or a cat. They need to run and roam and be wild and free. My days can be dictated by the weather. The animals need to be either kept from freezing or kept from cooking in the sweltering sun. I constantly need to find pet friendly places to hang out, because that's all Sunshine can do, hang out.
Nollie on the other hand makes things difficult in her own way. She is the polar opposite of Sunshine in so many ways. Nollie needs to run wild for miles. She needs exercise, but Sunny can't. She does not like people she is fearful and would defend me to end of the earth. She guards the camper and the car. She chases off strangers on the trail and then crawls into my lap to be petted and comforted and told she did good. Nollie demands extreme attention yet wants everyone to ignore her. She gets in fights at the dog park and scares the crap out of little kids and adults alike.
Then there is my lack of hiking. The time spent juggling work and the dogs has left little time for the trail. Sunny can't join me and she can't be left behind. It's put a cramp on my hiking and backpacking which is my mental health cleansing activity. No overnight trips, no summit attempts, no long hikes of any kind. This also means no camping away from people. Town is getting increasingly busy as are all the 4wd roads and easily accessible trails. With the truck and the camper and the dogs we are restricted to easily accessible wilderness areas which mean, yay, we get to hang out with loads of strangers. Generally I head into the woods to get away from people, society, my own thoughts, and now we can't escape. There are people everywhere. This also cramps our style with Nollie, who as I've mentioned, needs to run, but can't handle the strangers, so now she needs to be leashed more and more often.
Maybe I'm putting too much stock in this house. I've for years had a dream of a little house with a yard. Nothing extravagant, but when I saw this place with the fence and the dog door, I knew it would be perfect. I want the dogs to run out the door and chase squirrels and not have to worry about them chasing strangers or being hit by a car. There would no longer be 3 flights of stairs for Sunny to struggle with and she could just hang out on the porch and relax in the sun with her nose in the air, or underground in a hole she's digging, enjoying the world. Sunny deserves to be a porch dog in her retirement, and it kills me to see them in the back of the car some days.
So no hiking on my own and no operating my hiking business either. The lenders are spying on me and I'm not making this shit up; I wish I was. I cannot be open for business. Next weekend is 4th of July, the busiest weekend of the summer, and I can't capitalize on it and make money. No classes, no trips, no rental equipment, no meal packages, hell, I'm not even allowed to update my travel blog about my final bits of my personal New Zealand trip months ago. I cannot answer my phone or return emails or advertise or update my website. At this point I'm pretty much ruined for a successful summer with Beyond Backpacking. Ugh. So dumb. They are still counting my debts from opening my business against me too, but won't let me operate to recoup any of those expenses.
Not just no hiking, but no vacations for me either. I always have to be accessible and in cell service and ready to access my financial files and documents and near a computer and able to respond to phone calls and emails quickly. So no headed into the wilderness, but no headed out of town either because no only do I need to be near this pertinent information, but I cannot use my credit cards. That means no plane tickets or long term planning. I missed my uncle's wedding, probably can't go to OBX in August because by the time I'm allowed to buy tix and leave town prices will be through the roof. I'm trying to plan travel to Bali or Costa Rica in the fall as well, or maybe join Kumar in Nepal as I've been planning for over a year. No booking a honeymoon either or planning my wedding.
That's right, the wedding, the one I may have to call off at this point, the one that is supposed to be in a few months, is totally on hold. As I said I can't use my credit card, so no buying anything, booking anything, putting a deposit on anything. I don't know how much closing on the house is going to be so I need to save every dime in my bank account, no big purchases of any kind. Also when this all began and we started looking at wedding venues and realized how absurd the pricing was we decided we'd rather spend our money on a house, that was more important to us, a place to live and raise a family for years as opposed to one day. We said that once we bought a house we could have a wedding in the yard. All we want is our family and friends to all come together, have a BBQ, hang out, see the beautiful mountains in which we live, and celebrate with us. I am running out of time. If there is no venue, there's no date, and I can't really set up anything else.
I want to have a family. It is no secret. Call it biological clock, or whatever you want, but it doesn't change the fact. I try and be responsible and right now I feel like I can barely take care of myself and my pets, let alone human kids. I think I should have a place to live first before bringing them into this world. I'd love a house, but really it's in part about living somewhere a bit more affordable because rent is astronomical. I need somewhere with 2 bedrooms where the second bedroom doesn't have roommates. I don't want roommates, I want a family.
These are the things that are eating at me every day. These are the things I am not talking about. These are the things that make me cry daily and make me angry because I work hard and try and do what's right and things are still a mess and I wonder where I went wrong. This house has been in the works since mid March, in many ways longer. In many ways it's been in the works since the day Clayton asked me to marry him. I've always wanted a house for the above reasons, but I needed someone crazy enough to want in on it with me, to share the dream of a better life. I put my condo up for sale January one and the madness began with regular showings and packing and cleaning and moving out and it hasn't stopped since, it just shifted into camper life. I don't know if we will ever close on this house. The lender continues to delay and the seller continues to want to back out of the deal. It just needs to end, to be done, one way or the other, so that we can live somewhere and move on with our lives. Hopefully it all works out soon, but it is still a day to day thing with no set closing date and no real end of the deal. The lender is still working the realtors are still working and I am still here, now a zombie, staggering around the mountains, hoping for a cure.