It really was quite fun to brush off my barista skills and make coffee drinks again. I hadn’t touched an espresso machine in about…nine years, but everything came right back to me. The best part is that I didn’t leave the cafe thinking about work. I decided to keep myself at part time hours as I needed some recovery and healing time from teaching and the general treadmill of life.
It’s funny, I also thought I was a person that needed routine. Because of my anxiety I do like to know what’s going to happen and I used to have a very hard time when my plans changed suddenly. But throughout my life I have a pattern of changing things every 3-5 years. A new apartment, a new job, a whole new career. Living in Cambridge and working in education was the longest I’d ever stuck with one thing in my life. Even though there were many wonderful moments and a lot of happiness, the general routine of daily life wore me down.
It didn’t help that Billy and I often only had one day a week off of work together. There was never enough free time to do the fun things, but also make sure we could relax before a new week began.
So we changed our life. Being in Vermont felt a bit like a vacation although we were both working. Billy was home at 5:00pm instead of 8:30. We cooked dinner together and ate at our new table. We watched the sunset and went to bed peacefully, not stressed about the next day at work. I spent a lot more time outdoors in the nature of it all. It really was the hard reset we both needed.
After about a week of settling I was happy to once again find routine. I had a beautiful morning drive where I rarely saw more than five other cars and walked into work smiling. I got to know the morning locals and chatted about farm life with my co-workers. I would leave in the early afternoon and often head to the Middlebury College library. A gorgeous campus and a nice quiet space for me to work on my future plans.
By the way, there is an adult sized swingset in a green grassy field on campus. The fact that this is meant to be used by college aged kids made me so happy. Talk about embracing neurodiversity! Coincidentally I drove by it everyday to get to work. Finally, one day I walked over to give it a try. Needless to say I smiled so big and even giggled out loud a little bit. Well done Middlebury College, well done.
This is where I will leave you today. There will most certainly be a part 3 to this Vermont summer where you can read all about a rather unsavory repair we had to make. Take care and stay curious!