Late March Monte Report

Yesterday was my last official day at work. I'm both excited and terrified about what comes next. I've been packing up my stuff for weeks now, and there are boxes everywhere. Soon they'll be loaded aboard a truck and hauled up to Washington. In the meantime, I hope to spend a bunch of time out-of-doors, birdwatching and just recuperating and healing.

I received the best send-off from work imaginable -- full of warm wishes and wonderful gifts and flowers and balloons and all that. My going-away party was officially called a "See Ya Later, Monte" party, rather than a "Good-Bye" party, and it feels so good to be so welcome in people's lives. If only I could keep that in the forefront of my mind when the fight-or-flight part of my brain gets over stimulated and I lose my confidence in the idea that people would prefer a High-Maintenance-Monte over No-Monte-at-All.

In addition to getting packed and moved, my biggest challenge will be to keep myself occupied, and to avoid feeling guilty about not working. In the short-term at least, it will seem like I'm just on vacation. But I've got to think of it more in terms of recuperation. When someone has surgery, they usually can't go back to work immediately. There's a period of time when healing must take place. I'm psychology injured in a big way, and I need healing -- healing that some people might see as a disguise for avoiding work. Anyone who really knows me, however, knows I have a pretty strong work ethic. I am not one who milks the clock at all. When I'm ready to return to work, I will do so.

I've had some very difficult days lately, with suicidal ruminations being triggered by the oddest events. Hopefully this type of thing will decrease as the social stresses from my job get further behind me. In the meantime, my medication regimen is not changing. Once I'm up in Washington, I'll need to find a new psychiatrist right away. My current doctor is inclined to think that the next step is to wean myself of my current meds and then try something new -- but not until the transition to Washington is complete. The next few weeks will see that transition happen, with last goodbye dinners with all sorts of people. That itself will be a source of anxiety, as I fret over who to see and when to see them between now and my last drive off into the sunset.

Anyway, on a lighter note, there has been quite a congregation of seabirds around the wharf in town over the past couple weeks, including several unusual species, and I saw a life bird there earlier this week: a Black-legged Kittiwake. So that's 501 species on my life list . . .

Mid-March Monte Report

Well, I'm still having a rough time of it, but packing has been a good distraction. My apartment is a maze of boxes -- and yet there is still so much left to pack that it's kinda hard to tell that anything has been packed at all!

My job is taking a major toll on me. There are essential tasks that I simply cannot do anymore. Add to that the fact that our new computer system at work has left me feeling like a brand new employee for the past nine months, and what you get is an ego-crushing effect that makes it hard to just get out of bed. We just had a wonderful weather weekend, and I barely got out of the house. And I followed that up with calling in sick on Monday and Tuesday. I just couldn't bear to face the demands at work. I did manage a half-day yesterday, and am feeling energetic enough to finish out the week. After that, it's just two more weeks and then I'm done. I may still do a little bit of behind the scenes work for a short while thereafter, until I'm actually out of town -- but at this point I'm not yet sure when that will be.

A number of people have wondered if I'm dooming myself by moving to "the middle of nowhere" and just isolating myself even further. Possibly. If that's the case, then I'll face that bridge when I come to it. It doesn't change the fact that I MUST make a change now if I'm simply to survive -- without trying to sound melodramatic, I'm more confident that I'll survive living in the boonies than if I stay put where I am (and it's not like I'll be all alone in the boonies -- I've got more than fifty Aunts, Uncles, Cousins and other miscellaneous relatives in the vicinity of where I'm going -- not to mention my parents and my sister's family who are also moving up there in the near future).

Today's good omen bird-of-the-day is a Red-breasted Sapsucker that I saw outside my bedroom window just now -- the first one I've seen here in my "yard" since I moved here four years ago. (photo from the files of the United States Forest Service)

Early March Monte Report

Well, my trip to Hawaii was enjoyable. The weather wasn't always very cooperative, but still it was fun and it was great to have the chance to have a whole week to catch up with friends. Removing myself from my Santa Cruz life for a week also helped me put some things in perspective. Specifically, it helped me to see that I am so incredibly miserable with my life in Santa Cruz that a major change is required if I am to have a chance to survive. And so I've made the decision: I'm moving to Washington. I will continue with my job for the remainder of the month, while they work on hiring a replacement. I don't know just yet when my last day in town will be -- as you probably know, I've got a lot of stuff to pack and move. For the short term, I'll stay at my parents' place in Washington (where they'll be moving in May or June). I don't know what the long-term situation will look like, but one possibility is that my parents might put up another manufactured home on the property (it's about 22 acres) which I could then rent from them. Details like a new therapist, new pharmacy, new doctors, a new job and all that jazz are on the back burner while I simply struggle to get through the next few weeks. Fortunately, my desitination is a beautiful one - here's the view from the back porch of my parents' new house. Although I'm looking forward to the change, it's going to be rough saying goodbye to my California friends. I'm sure I'll have more to say later, but for now I think I'll get started on packing.