Boston and the fog
/I took a short vacation to Boston the last week of September. I’m still not used to having vacation time at work so I just chose two of the three weeks randomly (third week is for Christmas) and planned the rest later. My sisters had been a few times to see various performers and shows, but I don’t want to spend my break from work worrying about coordinating schedules and conflicting interests, so I decided to just go on a solo trip. There was no real agenda to visit anyone or see anything, though I did take a few suggestions (thank you, Laura, for recommending the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum) and I met up with Denis, an old friend from university, over beer and pizza at Regina’s.
Overall it was a good trip, but in hindsight I probably should have given myself an extra day in the city or saved up a little more money. I stayed five miles away from downtown in Dorchester, and booked non-direct flights to minimize cost, but when you factor in departure and arrival times as well as transit, I only had at most three days out of a Monday to Friday trip; it was even less than that because my exhaustion led me to sleep in later on Wednesday and Thursday. Part of this forced frugality was because it was so soon after my Montreal trip in June, and at the time I didn’t know that I was going to be made permanent at work, so I figured it was as good a time as any to see a few places that I had intended to visit but never got around to doing so.
I definitely want to visit again. It didn’t capture my heart the same way Montreal did, but I didn’t quite immerse myself as much as I did during that trip. I also wish I had the time and money to visit Provincetown that week. I guess that’s something to do another time.
It feels much longer than just over a week since I came back to Halifax, and I seem to have resumed the fog I’ve been in for the last few weeks. It’s still mostly manifesting as a lack of energy to do much in my free time, but I’ve also felt a little more absent-minded than I normally am, like there’s some important task that I’ve started but can no longer remember what it was. It rarely ends up turning into a bigger lapse, though one day I did accidentally put the sandwich meat for lunches in the cupboard instead of back in the fridge (ew).
It’s a weird thing to be aware that you’re in a bit of a rut, but for some reason you just don’t feel like you have the room or enough of a drive to shake it off. I’ve always been a creature of routine, but lately I’ve felt even more beholden to it, yet simultaneously bothered by this. Part of the rut comes from financial concerns (the trip was my big priority for the last few months), so once I have a few more dollars to throw around it may help with the spontaneity, but that’s not the only thing behind it.
Maybe it ties in with the whole absent-minded feeling, as if somehow deviating from the script will cause me to neglect my main beats. Part of it is also feeling boxed in by what (I think) other people’s expectations and perception of me are. I’m trying to let myself lean into my weirdness a bit more; at some point, trying to mask it just becomes too exhausting and isolating.
I wish I could just be one of those people who could just do whatever they want or be who they feel like.
