I’ve not been very good about posting on here lately. I start to write blog posts, get overwhelmed, take a break, and then that post goes to live in blog purgatory. I may or may not have mentioned in previous posts that I’ve struggled with depression my entire life and while I won’t go into that much right now I will say it gets really bad at times and the older I get the more exhausting it gets. It’s like having a really horrible neighbour that you can’t move away from and as the years go by you begin to wonder how much longer you’ll be able to bear it all. For a few months now that neighbour has been really awful and I’m having a hard time focusing on much else other than the noise. This makes it difficult to stay focused enough to write any post with a particular topic in mind. This post will be a little all over the place since I’m allowing myself to write this without any focus on a topic other than where I’m at, what’s in my head, and whatever else.

It’s hard to believe we’re coming close to having been here for a year already. About a week ago a question popped into my mind that I threw around in my head for a few days. If I could go back in time, before we applied for our visas, and tell myself how life in Scotland is at the ten-month mark, would I still want to move to Scotland? I honestly couldn’t answer that right away and if I’m honest there are days where I’d answer “nope,” and today might be one of them, but the conclusion I came to is that my answer to myself would almost certainly be “I want to see more. What happens at the two-year mark?” That really helped me to remember that we haven’t been here that long and that I really need to be patient with my feelings and understand this is just all part of the process.

This last weekend was a bank holiday weekend and boy was it a busy one. On Saturday I had my usual flying trapeze class and I decided to try out doubles trapeze at a workshop afterwards (spoiler alert: that will probably be the last time I try doubles), on Sunday Chewbacca and I had an agility competition, and then on Monday our friends picked us up and we went on a nearly twelve-hour adventure around Scotland. It was a full weekend but it was enriching and enjoyable.

As far as my regular day to day stuff, I’m still hanging out on the trapeze. I’m currently taking swinging trapeze, flying trapeze and trampoline. Those classes have been good therapy. Swinging trapeze has been challenging, as it’s truly a flirtation with gravity and is also incredibly painful to learn… just imagine having someone beat you all over the body with a trapeze bar and you’ve pretty much got the idea. Dog agility competition season is in full swing now and I’m really enjoying having a friend to go to competitions with and getting to see different parts of Scotland in the process. I’m so blessed to be able to continue that sport with my little gremlin over here. I’m also still at my job, I have about four months left on my contract. Some days I really like my job and other days I feel horribly underwhelmed. I’ve always wanted a job where I could either work from home, dress like a slob at work, have my dog with me, use my creative skills… my job doesn’t meet any of that criteria. Really, my job is a good gig and I’m very fortunate to have it, I just have some frustrations and I’m hopeful that I’ll figure that part of my life out eventually.

Some great news is that the husband is starting to get some work in addition to landing a two-week residency with an arts organisation here in Glasgow. This is such a relief and the hope is that this work continues to snowball and we will start stabilizing a bit. I’m really excited for him right now. Poor guy… today he came home from a meeting and Chewie had left him a poop in his office, Ryan cleaned it up, took Chewie outside where Chewie then puked up a nightmarish combo of bile and poop (he must’ve ate some of his poop because, well, why not) that Ryan then proceeded to clean up while trying not to throw up himself, then Ryan brought Chewie back inside and Chewie went and pooped in Ryan’s office again. Fortunately, I came home at that point and handled cleanup round three. I’ll add that Chewie has only ever had two accidents inside (today he was clearly not feeling well), and I had to convince Ryan that this wasn’t some personal vendetta that Chewie had against him. Why am I sharing this gross story that caused my husband so much distress today? Because it’s HILLARIOUS… to me.

Well, I think I’m going to stop here before I run out of steam and this never sees the light of day. I’m hoping this fog lifts from my brain soon and I can write some more focused posts. Fingers crossed! I hope this post finds you well. Until next time!