Traveling Well

 

As I type this I am preparing for vacation.  Writing has pretty much taken a backseat to the planning of what to pack, what will be wanted/needed, what might be best to take with us in order to save a bit of money, what is too much to pack.  The tendency is to try to pack for every eventuality.  

The reality is that I can pack every single thing I think I might need (also known as overpacking) but I will be very irritable upon arrival and equally irritable when we pack up to leave.  It's humping all that luggage and stuff about, you see, that really spoils the whole thing.  

I can under pack and sorely wish I brought along something that I will desperately miss.  Something that will be inconvenient to find or purchase once I'm there.  But it will seriously affect my enjoyment of the trip to be without it.  

It's finding the balance, that make packing, just like all the rest of living, such a challenge.  The all-important balance of knowing just what is enough and what is too much, what is necessary and what can be lived without, what will enhance the time spent on the journey and what will take away from it.  

This year of 2025 has been all about balance, about what to carry along for the years ahead, of what to leave behind once and for all.  The luxury I've had is that I've been able to go back and reclaim a few things I'd initially left behind.  I've returned to pick up playing piano, singing, creating art, my own style, swimming, independence (to a degree).

I've changed in that I am making/claiming space for myself.  I have moved my writing and art tools into the guest room once more.  It's the most reasonable place to put it all.  I've packed the art things into a rolling storage cart that I can move into the closet (which is not for guests) when we have the grandkids here or guests come to stay.  It is not ideal.  I need a proper desk or table.  I need a comfortable chair where I can sit.  In the meantime, I've done the best I can with what I have.  I'm making the work surface and chair a priority in 2026.  

I've also had to take a long hard look at difficult relationships and determine how I'll move forward.  My option this year was to cut back hard on the time I spend with some people.  To stop regretting the way things have been and to accept that I've never yet managed to change a thing.  I have been kind and loving and devoted but I heard someone speak a truth that smacked hard one day not too long ago.

It was an overheard conversation.  A woman was speaking on the phone to someone and sharing more than any of us needed to hear or know, if I am frank.  But thank goodness she was speaking out loud because she said something to her friend that I needed to hear and know from the inside out.  She told her friend, "You keep saying that even though he hurts you, you'll kill him with kindness...but what you don't understand is that he doesn't value kindness, yours or anyone else's...and you're the only one being killed by trying so hard to make him feel what he's indifferent to!"   

I applied that to my own life.  My kindness, my love, my respect, my devotion is meaningless because they have no value in the eyes of those into whom I was pouring those things.  Not doing doing/being all of those harm, but they weren't affecting anyone else.  

Contrary to popular believe the opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.  I learned that this year.

I've had to leave behind enough that I'm challenged by my discomfort to find...not replacements, because some of what I've left behind does NOT need to be replaced...No, I mean to be discomfited enough to try to change myself.  And uncomfortable enough to not want to linger overlong in this one place but to keep moving ahead.  

And to be discomfited enough to realize that not everything I've set aside needs to be completely gone.  I'm talking about the Blue House Journal now.  Just as when I 'killed' Penny Ann Poundwise and became The Blue House Journal, I realized that Penny Ann was a part of me regardless of what I did, so is Blue House Journal.  In 2026, I will start posting there once more.  My plan, my goal is to post once or twice a month.  No more.  

I've needed this break to realize that I enjoy sharing my household adventures and some of my frugal ways, and my family happenings.  I miss the relationship I built with many of you over the years, not that you didn't follow me here.  But I don't need the sort of obsessive focus I've left behind.  I'm going to continue my hiatus through the end of this year because I feel it's important to be distant enough to see why I got so weary of it.  I might even say wary of it.  

While on vacation, I plan to do my annual year-end review.  And to look forward to 2026 and where I hope to be by this time next year.  I feel I've grown and changed a lot this year, far more than in years past and I've no idea why such growth occurred at this stage of life but here I am.  I guess if I'm still capable of growth and change, I'm still capable of traveling through this life for a bit longer.