My cousin said I go on more vacations than anyone he knows. And that's kind of an unintentional compliment to me because I don't really go on vacation at all. I was born and raised, and still reside in an international tourist spot. I really try to make the most of that. I'm not rolling in the dough at all. But, I'm good at utilizing the resources I've had, with the biggest resource being time. These have truly been the scariest most insecure two years of my life. Yet, some of my misfortune has actually afforded me the ability to get out of town on the weekends, to explore my state, to get to know people I might never have met, to have incredible experiences, and to eat and drink very well. ...a little too well, if ya know what I mean.
Believe it or not, I am absolutely the type of person to appreciate the moment when I'm in it. I savor the hell out of the moment. Sometimes, I'm lucky enough to snap a photo that reminds me of the moment. Like any warm-blooded American, I filter the shot and post it to Instagram. What I end up with is, apparently, enough photos to convince people that I'm constantly on vacation.
In reality, in the past two years, I dated someone who took me away often, he proposed, I ran. I bought a cottage by the sea, so I went to the beach all the time. I still felt like running. So I went to the Keys a few times to get it out of my system. I convinced my friend to go on a family trip to Orlando. I went to a conference for school there, too, and happened to have friends there with annual passes so we could get in for no extra cost. I had a friend let me stay in her room in Las Vegas for nothing. Another one let me stay in New Orleans. At home, pretty regularly, my friends and I get free drinks or very very cheap drinks and food, or we cook and have people over. And we make a big deal out of it. Because, why not? The food is excellent, the drinks are decadent, the company is amazing. Why the hell not? What else are we supposed to be waiting for?
I kind of feel like any day can be a special occasion if you want it to be, and everything can be funner than normal if you choose to see it that way. I did, and I do. It made the scariest two years of my life survivable. I didn't give up. I wanted to. Every single day. Now that I'm seeing that light at the end of this incredibly long, dark tunnel, I'm left with all of these pictures to look at.
Was I supposed to Instagram the selfie I would have taken when I realized I couldn't save my house? Or how about an Amaro filtered shot of the severance package from when I was laid off 6 days after I bought that house? Should my friend have taken shots of me sobbing on the table during the biopsies? Could someone have gotten a good one of me tossing and turning at night, worrying about having cancer? No one was there to snap pics of my house emptying out as I had to move all my stuff to a storage unit. I cried every time I walked in the door and every time I left. I still cry sometimes when I think of all I've lost. But I have these remarkable little moments in between to be thankful for instead.
Sometimes people are judgmental and assume other people are making their lives look more awesome on social media than they actually are, but maybe that's not such a bad thing.
