Retreat-Reset/Future-Self Rendezvous 2025
Smudge the meme cat oversees our journey, while Zeus and I pull off the highway to stretch.
Things have been complicated lately…
I had a career, a partner, and a plan.
And then, I didn’t.
Notes from Dillon, Days 1-7
I am sitting in the mountains in Colorado now. It’s mid June. On the road, in a travel fugue, I barely opened an app (apart from my Google Maps route).
When I did log in to the outside world, I saw first that the National Guard had been sent to quell ICE protests in LA. With my stomach twisting, I switched off the phone and stared into the middle distance for much of the remainder of that day–which worked ok, since I was driving through Southern Colorado and the landscape was conducive to expansive reverie. Little traffic, big vistas.
Knowing that the people in the country I live in all exist in different bubbles with their own understanding of “facts” –I felt ill. I checked out again for days.
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The window in front of me here in the mountains has a blind that opens up from the bottom, obscuring the less-attractive (and currently chaotic) foreground to focus on the stunning and restorative portion of the view: snowy peaks and mountainous clouds. Breathe.
I cannot think of another time in my life when I and everything around me has felt so unmoored. Breathe.
A red plastic hummingbird feeder in the shape of Texas swings in the gusty wind. Hummingbirds come to check it occasionally but it isn’t full.†
There is a line of clouds forming to the West, apparently about to drop rain across half the valley. In the mountains, breakthrough sun makes the snow bright.
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I opened my phone a minute ago and saw that one of the California senators had been hauled off in handcuffs. This is now the third most terrifying thing that has happened in the last nine rapidly-deteriorating months, following election night and motorcycle night (more about this later maybe).
It made me think about how in March I had turned down a job opportunity in Canada after realizing that it would definitely make fixing my romantic relationship even more challenging. And maybe I’d hear from my love soon? At that point, I chose to “prioritize my relationship.” I recall my therapist’s pained smile.
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Today, a federal building in the Capitol is flying a Christian Nationalist flag, just beneath the US flag, and the person who leads this country has now put war with Iran on the table (probably after pushing aside Big Mac wrappers.)
I have spent a lot of time recently trying to decide if I should flee or fight. I still don’t know what the answer is. I am terrible at fawning, and freezing never really works out for me. Leaving my job was a flight that was exhausting and hard, but it has helped put some things into perspective.
With all the upheaval, I wanted to mark Summer 2025 with some sort of round up. So this post is a marker for where I find myself and briefly how I got here, as I am plotting out the next phase of this life.
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17 days ago
As of yesterday I no longer work at the theatre. My last day was mostly what the last day of any long time job would be: packing things up or throwing/giving them away. I passed along my plant but kept my red foam nose and groucho glasses.
On Jun 5, Zeus and I took to the road on our way to spend a month of work-retreat in Dillon, CO. I’ll be setting up a proper web shop for my art as well as stocking my Etsy shop properly and giving it a zhoozh. And drawing and dreaming and planning…
97 days ago
Long story shortish: after 11 years on staff I burned out; ADHD + perfectionism + menopause + sibling/subordinate/management issues made it an increasingly unworkable workplace, psychologically and physically. So much of that job was challenging and fun and creative and productive, that it took a long time to realize that I needed a big change.
127 days ago
Compounding and complicating things, B, who had been living with me, lost his remote job, took work in the city of his old life, and then something happened–we lost touch and he cut off contact until some undesignated future point.
That was a world-shattering experience in itself. We had a plan together–or so I thought; now it was just me.
And Zeus. Thank the pantheon for dogs.
So, I am making a new plan, choosing to prioritize the next phase in my art/work/life: platforming my art business. I must have some entrepreneurial bs in me, as the word “platforming” just flowed out.
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And so it begins.
† Mental note to look into that.