A Decision

    I want to fold laundry somewhere else.

    That wasn't the first thought I'd had about leaving. I'd had plenty. It was just the one that stuck with me a few weeks ago, the one that pushed me to do it all. It was such a small, simple little thought as I shook out a bedsheet and looked out my window at the view I knew so well.

    I'm tired of my job - even though I love it, and mentally worn out. The last few years, with Covid and inflation and climate disasters, not to mention war and the disintegration of people's rights... I was done. Am done.

    I live on Vancouver Island, in Canada. Paradise. I see mountains out my windows, the ocean breeze pours in, people are friendly and life is slow. Easy. Boring. I moved out here eight years ago because I was burned out then, too. 

    I built a decent life. I have my family, I made some wonderful friends that helped me find my voice, myself, and I liked going to work. I mean, the pay was terrible and I could barely afford my rent, but I like my apartment, my job, my friends, and my family. I'm content. Complacent. Unsatisfied. 

    The world changed, and I did, too, to go with the cliche. But standing at my living room window and watching the empty world outside gave me ideas. That maybe I was worth more than the very little I thought of myself. That I could be what I wanted. That I deserved to do things. Be someone. 

    Self-esteem issues aside (as we all have them), giving it all up and seeing the world has been on my mind for a while. I guess I finally had enough of the sameness of the faltering life I had here to push myself over the edge. 

    It really was a leap. I'm only barely into it, and I'm still falling. But I know it's the only choice I could make. That's what I told myself as I stared up at my ceiling last night, in the dark, while fear washed over me.

    I'm not a traveler. I didn't even do sleepovers as a kid. I was always scared. I live by routine. I google driving directions to places I've been to a half dozen times, in the tiny town I've lived in for years. I get upset when I have to stop for gas on my morning commute, because it breaks the route. The standard. I'm early for everything. I buy extras of things, just in case. I use three different shampoos and five different lotions on my face. I fall down Wikipedia rabbit holes and research everything so I'm not unprepared. I hate change. Or I did, maybe. I still haven't changed enough to know. 

    That's what I told myself  last night as car alarms went off and the wind blew through the trees, was that I can't stay here. What I have here is a slow decline into nothing. I'll never afford a house out here. Retirement is probably off the table, too. So I might as well spend what I've got in an attempt to live.

    I turn thirty-nine in eleven days. 

    I am in the process of packing up my life, selling what I can, and preparing to travel the world before I turn fourty. It's a lot harder to give up a life than movies, books and TV make it look. Maybe it would be easier if my mind didn't stick on stupid things like making sure I update all my logins so dual-factor authentication doesn't use the phone number I'll be giving up. 

    When am I going, where am I staying, how will I get there, and what will I do? I don't have a clue. I have some broad ideas, but no plans. But I can't help but perseverate over little things that will all work out. Anxiety's a bitch, but that's just one more hill I have to climb. 

    Except I don't much like climbing hills. Maybe that will change, too. But I doubt it.