A Snapshot and The Scoop: Towpath Trail, An East Coast Epic Story

No longer in use as a towpath along the Ohio & Erie Canal in Cuyahoga Valley National Park, this  crushed limestone biking and walking trail through the center of the park offered an excellent way for me to spend a few hours exploring the heart of this park, located surprisingly close to Cleveland, Ohio. Although it was fairly busy, I still managed to find some solitude along the path, allowing me to take in the green tunnel of the trail, the grasses growing from the now-defunct canal threading parallel to the towpath, and, if I listened closely, the quiet rush of the little crooked river hidden beyond the trees.

A Snapshot and The Scoop: Moonshine Questions, An East Coast Epic Story

Oh, the stereotypes of an abandoned moonshine still in the swamps of the deep south. For real though, spotting this gem of broken, sagging plywood while wandering the boardwalk at Congaree National Park brought the past to life in ways that just reading about the history of prohibition could not have achieved. How many people used this little still? Why did they choose a flood plain, swamped with water for most of the year, as a hiding place? What did they do in their day jobs, if any? Were they discovered, leading to the still being abandoned, or did prohibition finally end? So many questions, likely never to be answered. It's little details like this that make my travels so enriching, and keep me coming back for more.

A Snapshot and The Scoop: Musings on a Human Tendency, An East Coast Epic Story

Once a paved road along 15 miles of Assateague Island, a few crumbling concrete slabs are all that remains of Baltimore Boulevard. Built in the 50's and destroyed by a northeaster in 1962. A short hike among the seashore dunes takes you to a bit of this road, where you can see for yourself the devastating power of the ocean in a fury. Is it ever a good idea to build so close to a powerful, nearly unstoppable force of nature? Why is it human tendency to push boundaries and attempt the impossible? Of course, the park would be completely inaccessible to all without a boat and perhaps an ATV without a few paved roads, but what cost comes with trying to maintain permanent structures on something as fleeting as a barrier island? Visit the park and perhaps you'll find answers there.

The Happy Jar of 2019

Run-down. I have been completely open about how much I've struggled this year, and I can see it clearly in the small handful of posts I've written these past few months, especially in the posts labeled as "Musings." I talk about how tired I am, how things have been rough, how shitty I've been at writing and posting lately. Apparently, though, I've also gotten really good at lying to myself. Everything's fine, it's all good, put a smile on my face and power through. I'd gotten so good at lying to myself, and others when they'd ask how I'm doing, that it took me far too long to realize my smiles are fake, that all I am doing is sleeping, that I'm not joking when I say I don't have the energy to feed myself. I'm not entirely sure when I stopped caring about the things that make me happy; it's been at least since spring this year, though maybe even further back. Again, lying to myself. I have next to no motivation to travel, to write, and even thinking about picking up a chapter book to curl up and read for a while makes me exhausted. I still love and care for my animals, and am excited when I get to bring home something new, but my motivations for loving and caring for them have changed from doing it because I love it to doing it because they need it. And it is exhausting.

I think I first realized something was wrong as I was writing my Thanksgiving post, when I seriously sat for an hour and struggled to think of more than one thing I was thankful for in the last year. But again, I lied to myself and brushed it off as being tired. It wasn't until the following weekend when Jared, who had read my post, asked me if I was happy. My answer was an automatic "of course I am" though almost immediately I realized I was lying. But I didn't say anything. It wasn't until later that week, when Jared found me in bed after getting home from work early, sleeping right through dinner and evening animal chores and everything else that comes in the hours after work, that I verbally acknowledged that I am not okay. The next day, after sleeping for nearly 14 hours, I began looking for a therapist.

I've recently begun treatment for the depression I've desperately been trying to hide from myself and everyone else, and though I'm not okay yet, I am at least hopeful that I will be. The problem is, it's not all the time. I can be cheerful and excited and look forward to things in one moment, then eventually those emotions drain away to leave me feeling like I'm wading through a fog of exhaustion and apathy. I can easily hide my melancholy while chatting on the phone, and it's even easier over text and social media, where tone is never conveyed and I get to pick and choose what I share. But now that I've acknowledged there's something wrong, and have taken steps to get help with pulling myself out of whatever hole I've fallen into, I can work on being better. One of the exercises my therapist has me do daily is to physically write down three things I'm thankful for; the first time she asked me to tell her what I'm thankful for I struggled in silence that seemed to stretch on for hours until I finally came up with being thankful I got off work early. Another pause, then said I was thankful for my run at lunchtime. But I just could not come up with a third thing. I couldn't do it. We sat there in silence until I finally remembered it was sunny out, and blurted I was thankful for the sunshine. And I think that was the point of the exercise: to be thankful for the little things in life, to make note of even the smallest things that make you smile.

That exercise, on a bigger scale, is what I've been doing for years with my Happy Jar. I take the moments in life, big and small, anything that makes me happy, and write it down on bright slips of paper. I review those slips any time I need a reminder of happiness, and I can finally admit to myself that I've looked at that jar more this year than any other. I know that this is not going to be a quick-fix, that I've got a lot of shit in my own head to sort out, but at least now I have acknowledged there's a problem and have someone with training to help me figure it out. While I've got a long ways to go to just be okay again, here are a few things that have brought even a small dose of happiness into my life, which I'll keep in mind for however long it takes:

Please excuse me while I wax poetic about how amazing my husband is. Jared has been nothing but supportive this year, and I really wouldn't know what to do without him. He does this thing where he intentionally makes goofy faces, or pulls off ridiculous actions, just to make me laugh. And he licks my face. While it's gross, it obviously makes me giggle, and I'm pretty sure it's one of his favorite ways to get a laugh out of me.

I finally had a real garden this year! I didn't get to spend nearly enough time in it due to a broken wrist this summer, but I am pleased with how it turned out. I can't wait for planting season (which, ya know, is in a few short weeks down here!)

A constant source of joy in my life this year has been Bug, the ring-tailed lemur baby my husband and I raised from the day he was born. Those first few weeks were rough, with hourly feedings which gradually became less frequent, and constant worry that something would go wrong, but he's now nine (!!!) months old and living his best life with us. The picture of him below was taken when he was right at 24 hours old.

This year was the busiest by far for rehabbing, and I wouldn't have it any other way! I am fortunate that I had help from both Jared and coworkers in caring for the spring babies, and the coworkers mostly cared for the fall babies, which allowed us to help even more animals than if I were trying to do so alone. It always feels so good to see hard work rewarded when releasing wild babies back where they belong.

This one is super important to Jared and I, because for the last several years Marley was plagued by seizures every 5-6 weeks. We finally found a dose of medications that worked well for him and moved into a permanent home (we were renting before and didn't much like where we lived), and now he's seizure-free!

This year might as well be known as the Year of Star Wars for me. Because yeah, I AM a nerd (like my father before me)!

It's pretty well known that Jared doesn't really travel with me, and that we generally prefer it that way. Occasionally, though, we do go places together, and I love it even more. While at the beach for a friend's wedding I somehow got Jared to go into the water with me for a bit of swimming, which mostly consisted of him carrying me because I didn't want to step on a crab. The things you do for love!

I am rather proud of both myself and my dog for this one. I've never really run before this summer, and now I'm signed up for a few races in the coming months. Ghost, who failed as an adventure pup due to his fear of heights and water, has been with me on every training run possible, and he's taken to running better than I could have hoped. Plus his post-run faces are the best!

Again, Star. Wars. Nerd. Jared and I enjoy going to the movies and we saw several this year that made it into my Happy Jar (Avengers: Endgame and How To Train Your Dragon 3 to name a couple), not only because I loved the movie but also because it was a date with Jared.

2020 is going to be quite the year as I relearn how to navigate my own life and work on being better. I already know next year's Happy Jar is going to be central to helping me be positive, and I'll continue doing my daily exercises at the direction of my therapist to facilitate that. As it is, I'm happy to wave goodbye to 2019 and am looking forward to what the new year will bring.