Tag: travel

sober lifestyle

Interruption

jenwielgusjournalism

I didn’t realize how hard it had been raining until we finished hiking one gorge (Taughannock Falls; pictured above) and got in the car to head to the next (Ithaca Falls; see below). I plopped into the passenger seat, and all at once, I was forced to feel my soggy jacket and leggings clinging to my limbs, my soaked hat/hood weighing heavy on my head, and my tangled hair clumped against my neck.

For the previous two hours, I’d been completely unbothered, my personality split off to its “pleasant” side as my three favorite elements of the universe — my partner, nature and movement — converged in/around one gargantuan hole in the Earth. I found myself feeling grateful for the weather, because despite it being a Saturday morning at a high-traffic tourist attraction, my husband and I barely encountered any other humans on the trails. It was a cleansing rain, from that point of view, washing away both the residue of the week and the weight of the world.

But then, we stopped, and sat stewing in our respective puddles, and I felt my mood instantly turn irritable. Every inch of my body was antsy, to either get where we were going, stat, so I could move again, or get on back to our AirBNB so I could change into cozy pajamas, stuff (burn) my mouth with freshly-baked frozen pizza, and dissociate to Netflix by the fire.

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sober lifestyle

Enchantment

jenwielgusjournalism
Views from the deck of the most perfect VRBO on the planet, located in Cedar Crest, NM, just off the Turquoise Trail, 20 minutes outside Albuquerque, with easy access to the Sandia Mountains and Cibola National Forest.

My husband tried to show me several different options for rental homes as he prepared to book our trip to New Mexico, but once I saw the log cabin with the mountain view and hot tub out back, I pushed the computer right back onto his lap. “That is my dream house!” I declared. “Why would we stay anywhere else? Hell, let’s move there! Can you ask if the owner wants to sell?”

When you know, you know, and if there’s one thing I’ve discovered about myself in the 22 years since I moved to Pennsylvania — I mean, other than the fact that I cannot f*ck with alcohol — and married a man from the Pocono region, it is that I am 100% a mountain girl. Mountains >> The Shore all day, every day. Give me crisp, dry air, tall trees, big rocks, wide open skies where you can see all the stars, and peace and quiet with as few people as possible….

And roosters crowing in the distance just before dawn. 🐓🌅 I’m adding that one after our recent visit to the “Land of Enchantment,” because the chorus of cock-a-doodle-doos that accompanied my morning coffee breaks and yoga sessions on the deck of the cabin made the whole “retreat from reality” experience all the more enchanting.

I caught a few of them in this audio clip:

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sober lifestyle

Return

jenwielgusjournalism
Look! Stars! 👀🌟

It was Sunday morning around 3AM, and I was more than just wide awake. I was awestruck, star-gazing from the balcony of an oceanfront room on the third floor of Turtle Bay Resort, listening to the relentless wind whip through the palms and stir up the Pacific.

Being in Hawaii was like plugging permanently into the “Calm” app, if it had an “intense” setting.

Listen! Waves! 👂🏻🌊

Bliss on steroids…that’s the best way I can describe my return to Oahu, where I soaked up the sun, sand, surf, seafood — and room service! — on my husband’s company dime for four lovely, lazy days. I lounged on the beach in a two-piece bathing suit in the middle of February, when I was supposed to be slaving away at work/school…and, based on the faint rumblings I heard from back home, at shoveling snow.

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sober lifestyle

Mediocrity

jenwielgusjournalism

Five minutes into the first class of the final semester, I realized I was done with being in school.

I mean, it was fine to be treated like a fresh-faced noob when this all started three years ago and the experience of academia as a “nontraditional student” was novel; I was so caught up in the adjustment to a full-time job/class/homework schedule that I had no perspective on anything. But to be older and wiser and sitting on achy hips in a plastic chair past my bedtime, dissecting yet another syllabus and engaging in childish icebreakers like, “Tell us what grade you want to get in this class”? 🙄

I at least tried to make this futile exercise interesting. “I’m going to say a ‘B,’ because I used to freak out about this stuff, and now, I’m trying to be more chill about everything.”

B’s, by the way, are the lowest you can go in this Master’s program and still pass, but to suggest that it’s OK to want that was apparently the wrong answer. My professor seemed taken aback, and quickly clarified: she wanted us all to be good little grade-grubbers gunning for A’s! My classmates complied, upping the absurdity ante as they went around the room: “I want an A-plus plus PLUS!” 🙄🙄🙄

The recovering perfectionist/all-or-nothing alcoholic in me wanted to scream, “WAKE UP, YE CITIZENS OF LA-LA LAND! YOU’RE BEING SOLD A LIE!”

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sober lifestyle

Simplicity

jenwielgusjournalism
Casting my shadow on the south ridge of Cadillac Mountain, after scaling the highest point in Acadia National Park.

“Do you think I’m boring?” I asked my husband as we sat on a park bench, staring at the ocean, on the final evening of our 15th anniversary trip to Maine.

Foolish question! I mean, the man had been right there with me every second of the previous five days, hoofing it around hiking trails and carriage roads at Acadia National Park, then trekking up and down Portland’s downtown walkways for hours on end, until we both collapsed into our hotel or AirBNB bed — after a tick inspection, of course. He never complained!

Hell, he’s known me for 20 years, and I’ve always been a no-frills nature girl with simple tastes (if also some moderation issues 😬). The frills are even fewer since I quit drinking, and yet, at three years sober, the two of us feel closer and more in sync than ever.

Whether or not a walking tour of Maine was the “romantic getaway” of Hubby’s dreams, he certainly didn’t rain on my parade. And with flawless weather, the freshest of air, plenty of room to move, awe-inspiring scenery and my best guy by my side (maybe a few steps behind? 🤣), I was in paradise!

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