Jeff's Journey 1111: Remaining Positive

It's been very difficult to remain positive lately.

So many things have been running through my mind, causing many emotions to run through my heart. I'm not going to belabor, yet again, a potential relationship having deteriorated. I've beaten that dead horse to a pulp many times over.

I've tried moving on. It seems it's not even time to do that. So, I guess I won't. Or maybe there's still something I'm supposed to learn or accomplish now. Time will tell, and fucking soon, I hope.

The men I've tried chatting with have, for the most part, turned out to be phony with the exception of just a teeny-tiny handful. I thought I could go along with chatting with the phonies, knowing exactly what they were and what they were after. But, I was only kidding myself. While I wasn't getting attached to them in an emotional/romantic sense, maybe I was in a Platonic way. Or maybe the sheer number of them following the same pattern has been discouraging. Anyway, I am done.

My summer break from teaching has been a bit of a let-down. I had egregious plans of reading, writing, relaxing, traveling and accomplishing those household/life chores that needed more of my attention as I had more free time to accomplish them.

So far, I have managed to:

take care of things I needed to-
- address discrepancies on my credit report;
- made necessary appointments-financial advisor, optometrist, though I'm avoiding the dentist;
- deep clean my house; I've yet to tackle the refrigerator and stove;
- clean out clothes I no longer wear;
- clean out my office to make it more creativity inducing-well, I started to;
- service my car due to a recall;
- replace some of the dead and dying plants in my garden.
take care of things I wanted to-
- have solar panels installed;
- have my TV mounted on the wall;
- get out and play with my new camera-okay, I did that only once;
take care of things I suddenly had to-
- repair the air conditioning (so no little day trips due to the unexpected expense);

I have also managed (in the less productive category) to:

binge a couple of old TV shows;
start to get caught up on a film franchise I've been wanting to see;
become completely turned off to the idea of a relationship-again (see above);
become nearly completely disillusioned in humanity at large (see below);
become nearly engrossed in some games on my iPad.

I have yet to crack open a book and read; shame on me, I know. Or sit down and write a plethora of pages on either of my novels.

Something else running through my mind/heart is wondering if my sanity will make it through to my projected retirement date of 2020. It is just four years away. But it is still four years of teaching, parents, grades, report cards, conferences, professional development, students and continued attacks on teachers. I am seriously beginning to doubt I will last. Yet, can I afford to retire early? No. I may just have to leap and pray the net will appear.

The massacre in the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida and the murders of Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, the police officers of Dallas, Texas and Baton Rouge, Louisiana as well as all the other attacks around the world have taken a very heavy toll on me. The vehemently venomous vocalizations around this election have also been challenging to listen to and read. As well as the anti-LGBTQ hatred spewing forth from some candidates and their party.

Maybe its all piled up and hit me so hard because I've been in such an emotional confusion over the directions my life is taking, or seems to be moving in. Or maybe because my empathy is becoming stronger. So much stronger I have semi-jokingly told two people I want to move.

Far away.