Julie R. Neidlinger: Lone Prairie Blog

No worries.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 2 comments link this post

Flexibility is good. In all areas of life.

This afternoon, right after church and my little lackluster experience there, I drove back to the facility I had been staying in and endeavored to pack up and leave before the residents came back so as to avoid a big (and possibly confusing) scene and lots of eyes. I almost pulled it off, but not quite before some came back.

I've been feeling lots of eyes, every time I come and go, and it was starting to make me plan on leaving early in the morning and not coming back to the room until evening. Which is exhausting and unnecessarily stressful. And what I'm trying to do is exhausting and stressful enough.

Plus, I don't actually thrive on structure and rules. It's true. I'm a sweet-smiling, surface-obedient rule breaker. (I even break the rules I set for others in a particular organization I'm a part of. It's terrible.)

The place I stayed was a place where structure and rules are very defined and very necessary, and because of the haphazard and continually unpredictable nature of when I'd be "in class", it was going to make it both impossible for me to work there (which was part of the deal as to why I could stay there) and also made for a situation that didn't promote the stability for the rest of the staff and residents; that's not good. I couldn't expect them to put up with that. I felt it put too many in an uncomfortable and awkward position, myself included. I couldn't expect them to let me live there if I wasn't working, and since it became apparent that the working would not really pan out when I never knew from one day to the next my exact class schedule, I knew I had to leave, and the sooner the better. My presence was, I'm afraid, distracting for the working staff and the residents. "Who is she? Why is she here?"

As it is, I am "camping" tonight, though I use the term lightly. I'm in a little cabin at a fabulous campground with a pool and free WiFi and tree-shaded seclusion despite I94 being just one mile away. Right outside my door is a beautiful lilac bush which makes me smile, because it looks like I won't miss the lilacs this year, after all. Directly behind the little cabin is a pasture with a sorrel mare and a new foal. There are few people here tonight, so there isn't much noise. I don't have any neighbors. The cabin is cozy and the sounds of two determined yellow birds are delightful. Granted, I may not have had the normal bedding for camping, but I can make do, no problem. I've camped in these kinds of cabins many, many times, from South Dakota through Texas to a nearly a week in San Antonio and Carlsbad, NM and multiple times in Colorado...I'm familiar with the place and it's why I decided to do this rather than a low-grade motel room for the same price without the peace and quiet.

All in all, not bad for doing a hasty pack-up, dragging stuff down three flights of stairs and through a winding building using duffels and garbage bags and makeshift containers. I certainly will enjoy the rest of my afternoon and evening here, with Monday being a day of looking into three other possible solutions for finding housing.

None of this weirdness was on my "master plan", but master plans are really just anchors. I catch myself again thinking that I should remember to never ask people for help (which is what I did to locate a place to stay while here) and that I should just take care of things myself, but that's really not the solution. If you need help, ask for it. It doesn't always pan out and often, people can't help. Sometimes, things just go wonky. I'm oddly relaxed about it and, to borrow from the Aussie's, feeling very much the concept of "no worries."

Tuesday, more class.

On Saturday, I completed my first significant hour of part of the instruction. It was VERY exciting despite being a little white-knuckled. My instructor seemed relaxed, which was good, because, had he not been, I probably would have absorbed his nerves, imploded, and ceased to exist.

Well, I have a little more reading to do, then maybe a dip in the pool and some laundry catch-up.

Remember, no worries. ;-)

Jacqui: If you feel that you need to reimburse me for your text messages, by all means, go ahead. Ha ha. At ten cents each coming and going, you owe me... $1?

Labels: my life, summer 2008, travel