1 month in

Do you have any homesick feelings?  Or just happy?

Just about two weeks into our move, one of my favorite humans texted this to me.  I had only started having passing thoughts and feelings about the PNW at the time and maybe I would have described them as homesickness.  I didn't want to analyze it too heavily yet, though, since that point in my cycle is always flooded with nonsense emotes anyway.  But, in the time since, I've used their question as a sort of barometer to check myself and to try to understand how I'm processing this huge life change.  

When I think about Tacoma, some imagery makes me feel... something(s).  It's not nostalgia yet, it's not really missing or yearning for anything either, and it's certainly not homesickness.  It's more like a cozy anticipation of the passing of time lessening my feelings in general.  I look forward to things mattering less, though I'm also surprised at how little they matter thus far.  Sure, I think about my pets that I've left behind, some of them for good, and I get deeply sad.  I think about the forests of the PNW and the backyard we left behind and I feel nervous about not being able to find the same joy here that those things brought/bring me.

Most often, though, I am instantly overwhelmed when I think about Tacoma.  Even the mention of some months from this year make anxiety zip through my whole body before I even have a chance to remember what living through that month entailed.  I don't really understand how I made it here at all, mentally or emotionally.  I know that, for many months, when someone asked me how I was doing, my response was that I was taking life hour by hour.  I prioritized what I had to in order to make it through the day, made sure I stopped in time to take care of myself (sort of), and moved onto the next day.  

(Thankfully, breaking things down into manageable tasks is one of those lessons my mom successfully taught me in my youth because I'm obviously prone to taking on too much and then collapsing - thanks mom!)  

That baseline survival mode is not only the thing that pushed me to be successful in getting out the door, but I suspect it's also the defense mechanism that prevented me from total breakdown - consistently for the last several years, to be honest.  If I hadn't had this move to look forward to and dedicate myself to fully, I don't know how my mental health would be holding up back in the States.  I'd already seriously disassociated from many of the things that used to make me tick and I feel like living the day to day had become simultaneously too much and not enough. 

It seems that the (almost) two years we gave ourselves to prepare for this move was enough for my mental and emotional self to be ready.  And I think I can safely say that (almost) one month into this move, I'm doing just fine.  

There is, of course, the caveat that I've not been working for two months at this point and that is SO DELIGHTFUL.  Will I continue to be okay once I pick up another job, after at least four months off of work?  I suspect so.  I have this opportunity to be somewhat picky about what I do and, regardless, it will be totally different than what I'd done before.  I'll keep checking in with myself and keep you posted.  

In the meantime, I'll dive a bit deeper into what feels 2022 gives me and what I'm looking forward to in 2023... in another post... once I have access to our shared computer again.