I feel wonderful! Which doesn’t make sense in some ways but makes total sense in others.

A year ago this month, I sold my home of eighteen years and moved to a rural county in Tennessee, a 1 hr 15 min commute to work, but hey, no problem! My position was eleminated on July 15th, so the commute isn’t an issue anymore. I’ve moved three additional times since the intitial move, but for three weeks now I’ve been living on the land where my forever home will be.

I sparingly use a generator (it’s as quiet as it can be, but it’s still loud), and I haul in the water that I use. I poop in a bucket. Most nights i fall asleep by 8:30, wake up around 1:30 or 2 and go back to sleep, then get up for the day at 5.

I am in a relationship with the kindest, sexiest, funniest man, and his being in my life is a blessed surprise.

On clear nights, right now, I can look straight up and see the Milky Way.

Fred and Gracie have adjusted to country living and are thriving.

I confirmed today that I’ll be paying over $800 a month for health insurance until the severence runs out in four months, or I get a job with a health insurance benefit.

I’ve applied for three assisant rural carrier positions after scoring ok on the assesment test. I peed in a cup today for one of those positions. My daddy was a rural carrier. There’s something special about the possiblity of me being one at the age of 54.

If I were to create pro and con columns and populate them with the above information, what would be the result? It doesn’t matter, because I feel the answer. Even if there are more negatives than positives, the postives outweigh the negatives. I have some things to work on. I want a job (to be honest, I want money to live comfortably), and I need affordable health insurance. But even so, I am happy, and life is wonderful.

This post is intended to catch you and me up. I want to write regularly about being here. It’s challenging (winter is coming), beautiful, and I’m surrounded by people who are wonderfully complex. I want to tell these stories. I want to tell my story.