Plan B

 The view from our balcony. It was so tranquil and while a few days were a bit cloudy, in general the weather was beautiful. 

The view from the shower in the Spa, which was incredible. I got a sauna/steam/soak and then exfoliation treatment, massage, and facial and by the time everything ended I was a puddle. 

 Our catch. Barracuda and red snapper. Gorgeous fish, though you don't want those barracuda and their teeth anywhere near your body, thats for sure. 

Our daily encampment. Right next to the eternity pool and overlooking the ocean. The kids had friends from school staying at the same hotel, so spent the days playing with their friends, finding shells, discovering (unhatched, dead) turtle eggs, eating delicious food and doing lots of reading. 

The view was amazing. 

The sunsets were even better. 

Oh, Mexico. We just spent the most relaxing week enjoying being together, great food, and the beautiful resort at the JW Marriott in Cancun. Direct flights both ways made the trip super easy, and we came home relaxed and refreshed. I had done well the week before vacation, and weighed in at 123 before leaving. Came home at the same weight, despite not once lacing on my running shoes or workout gear. The kids had yet another day of fall break on Monday, and it was nice to get the house back together and feel grounded here at home again, but my Tuesday morning I was more than ready to get back to the normal routine. 

The first day of their fall break we headed up to Kenosha pass to see the Aspens. 

While they were still beautiful at lower elevations, striking a gorgeous contrast between the evergreens, we found that it had just snowed at the pass and all of the leaves were gone! Fresh snow to fresh sand was a nice break, indeed. 

On Monday I had my pre-op appointment and it went okay. I found myself teary. The surgery should take three hours and the recovery sounds like a hard week, an easier week, and then a gradual return to full activity around 6 weeks or so. I have such mixed emotions about all of it. I hate the idea of being bedridden for a while. I hate the idea of the household bustling around me like it did when I broke my hip. Then again, I'm so grateful to be forever done with the pill, and with adenomyosis, and all that is associated with both. I'm starting to freeze some meals (I've put away chili, pulled pork, and homemade meatballs and gravy…..but have a husband who staunchly refuses any sort of casserole, so I'm running out of ideas. Maybe some soup?) I have friends bringing dinners the first three nights after my Mom leaves, which gets me taken care of for a full week, and I'm hoping that by that time I will be participating in the house again. 

Before leaving for Mexico I made the conscious decision to leave my FitBit at home. I haven't put it back on since we returned. There are a few things I know. I know that I get plenty of sleep, and I know that I am very active. I found that I was getting weird about the data, comparing flights of stairs from one week to the next, minutes exercised, steps, etc. Every day became like a challenge to beat the day before…..but when you are already at 25K steps or something it starts to get tiresome. I realized that I was getting more caught up in what the data was telling me than on what my BODY was telling me. I don't know that I will be putting it back on. I also read an article while away talking about the inefficiencies of such devices. I didn't realize that FitBit was actually being sued for inaccuracies in heart rate calculations. So, for now, FitBit and obsessive data monitoring are on the shelf.  

After not working out for over a week it felt good to get back into the gym yesterday, where I did a HIIT workout and sauna. Today I'm running "The Bluffs" with some friends before a massage and a lot of crappy errands and appointments. My goal between now and surgery is to really nourish myself with good healthy food, avoid alcohol as god  knows I had my fill in Mexico, and try to get all of my bases covered around the house while not stressing out too much. I know I'm going to be in good hands and if the house is a bit messy for a while, oh WELL. Yesterday I felt really sad, a sort of pining for my old life back in PA. I missed my friends a lot, I missed teaching, I missed the food cupboard. I think that talking to my mentor triggered it, I miss her terribly. It's hard finding your niche in a new place, even when things are going really well. I feel a little unmoored. I'm not sure what the solution is, at the moment, because there is literally nothing I can do about it before surgery and recovery….but I think that I need to get back to teaching, or take a class, or something. I need to have something that is just mine. I need to find a volunteering home outside of the school (which I won't stop doing…I just need something else that I feel passionate about). It's easy to fill my days with working out and errands and good books and seeing friends a few times a week, but I miss having a greater purpose. I got an offer to return to my old career, working from home. It is/was so tempting…..but the truth is that with the way Nate still travels I just don't know that our family would take the hit of removing me very well. I don't know how my travel would work. I don't know how the vacations that we have planned would work. Yes, I could put the kids in aftercare, and hire out as much help as I wanted, but is that really what we WANT? It isn't what Nate wants (well, he want's whatever I want, but the logistics of doing this now, without a true support system in place are difficult and can't be overlooked), and after talking about it with the kids it isn't what they want either. I admit to wishing that I hadn't been in such an intense industry ~ I wish I had gone into nursing or something that would allow for anything other than either a full time 45 hour/week job or….nothing (in my field). Is it too late to go back to school at 41? Am I being ridiculous to consider educating myself for a completely different field? 

I don't know. Maybe it's just all of this mooning over losing the thing that made my kids. I'm done with it after all, I mean what's the big deal, right? Yet. Yet it fully seems to signify some sort of transition into the "next phase", which seems to include menopause and getting, well, old. I guess I'm feeling old.   Not physically, but  acutely aware of aging and the life cycle. Seeing my kids hit milestones and do things that I REMEMBER doing makes me wonder ~ how did I get from there to here so damn fast? Have I done enough? Am I doing enough? The sadness prompted me to realize that I've let two key things go….them being a gratitude journal and a daily meditation practice. I simply need them. 

Have I done enough. Am I doing enough. These feel like big questions. Am I actually being the best Mom, Wife, friend, person that I can be? Am I being kind to myself, as well as everyone else in my life? When you just REMOVE yourself from your old life you really have to take a good hard look at the new life you have the opportunity to create. I don't know if that makes any sense, and we did only move 4 months ago, so of course there is a lot of sorting out going on……but I feel like Nate's life didn't really change, and the kids life didn't really change, but my life seems blown apart. Ah, I'm going on and on here and I'm sorry. A weepy sort of morning. I hope that a good run through beautiful Colorado trails knocks all of this mooning about right out of my head. 

Looking for good new series to watch or great books to read while in bed. I just finished watching Goliath, which I loved, and reading "I am Pilgrim" which kept me up till 3 am the night I finished it. Can't recommend it enough!