Post Vacation Delerium

Sometimes I feel like I’m adrift without an oar to help me steer. I’ve just returned from a vacation week at the beach and I just can’t get going. It’s almost like I’m in a semi-conscientious state. If I didn’t know that there are no Tsetse flies in South Carolina, I’d swear that I had contracted sleeping sickness or some other exotic tropical disease. I keep dragging out the unpacking. It’s almost as if I don’t fully unpack, I’m not really back home yet and I don’t have to move ahead. Moving ahead has been a problem for me for about two years now. Call it fear, call it procrastination, call it clueless and without a plan.

Earlier this year, I wrote about my last career change and its disastrous effect on my life. It’s almost as if I am paralyzed by some mysterious force that keeps me from moving forward. I just remembered something. Those hokey commercials about depression always mention lethargy as a symptom. I know the beast of depression very well. She is my constant companion and it seems like I won’t ever be rid of her. I keep trying to tell myself that I can deal with it and that I don’t need to see someone for it anymore. It’s as if I keep telling myself this over and over it will make it so. Yeah, right.

I started writing this on Monday and now it’s Friday. One of the promises that I made to myself when I started blogging here was that I would finish what I start. So, I’m back today to finish this post. This has been a strange week for me. I’m now eight weeks post-surgery and I’ve started back at the gym. I worked out on Monday and felt so elated that I signed up with the “Jillian Michaels” on staff there for a session the following day. OMG! After spending thirty minutes with her, I felt like I was about a hundred years-old. I dragged my sweaty overweight carcass to the car and drove home after a brutal masochistic session that left me gasping for air.

The highlight of my week was as usual the time I spend with my canine homeless friends at the no-kill shelter. They took in four new dogs and a litter of six puppies while I was on vacation. Just seeing their little faces and their wagging tails lifted my heart. One must take the good with the bad though and I cleaned up more dog poop in one hour than I had seen in the prior five months of volunteering.

Meanwhile, the bills from my hospital stay continue to pile up and my visions of a “dream job” must be put on hold. Next week I will drag out the old resume and embark on a journey to get a job that will help pay the bills. The reality of debt had pulled me back out of my post-vacation stupor and back into the real world