Chain reaction

We are fast approaching the Winter Solstice of 2018 – a time when we start to talk about the Light taking over the Dark, the sun coming back, turning the wheel toward a time of introspection, reflection, and preparations for the upcoming year. We talk about the cycles of life and how it pertains to what we’re doing in our day to day. Muggles *ha ha* start talking about New Year resolutions and what changes they want to make in their lives going forward…even though we all know that things very rarely change for anybody. 

That is so not the case for me this year. That hasn’t been the case for me in a long time.

And I’m not complaining about that – don’t get me wrong here – it’s just a statement of fact. My life has never been boring. I’ve never settled for mediocre. I’ve always kept pushing forward. And 2018 has certainly been a year of “OMG, OMG, OMG”, probably more so than it has been for me in years. Baking soda and vinegar – that’s what my 2018 has been: a powder keg waiting for it’s chain reaction to start. 

Let me briefly take you back, though, to when this whole journey for me started. I don’t mean all the way back to 2009 if we wanted to get all technical…but back to the Summer of 2014 when I moved to Seattle the first time.  That was NOT a happy move. That was not really initially a happy decision at all. We knew when Alex’s ejection fraction for his heart fell to 10% and we were told that we’d have to wait 6 months for a cardiologist that we had to get out. The initial move to Seattle, or “The Great Godinez Migration” as we jokingly called it, was the first domino decision in what would become the last 4 years of my life.  Alex and I worked really well like that together: we made a decision on a path to take and I’d just start making it happen. He used to tell people that he would have the idea and I would enhance it and execute it. I applied for every job in Seattle and it’s surrounding areas that remotely sounded like a great next career choice for me that would also give us some breathing room financially. Nothing really popped and we  knew that in order to make the move work, I would have to find work first. Alex was struggling with his health harder and harder on a daily basis and we were running out of ways to cope or get him to any kind of stability. 

Thankfully, finally, I heard back from a great company in June of 2014. We flew down to Seattle/Bellevue during the 4th of July weekend and stayed for a week. I did my in person interview and got the phone call 2 hours later with the job offer. I literally had everything set up on my computer waiting for me to hit “submit” “ok” and “go” as soon as the offer was in my email. I had the ferry set up for us and the car, the Alaska Marine Lines freighter set up for moving our items to Seattle, and a “fill the truck” party set up for our friends and neighbors to both help us get our stuff out of the house and say goodbye before I even hung up the phone with my new boss. Being a Virgo should be a a listed super power somewhere, just for the record. 

Alex was VERY sick during this time. Very, very, very sick. The whole day for our “going away” party in Juneau was spent with him trying desperately to help me with the move while simultaneously having myself and several others tell him to SIT THE FUCK DOWN and stop trying to help. He was pale, he could barely move, he could barely breathe, and I remember that being one of the first moments when I truly thought I might lose him. As stubborn as he was, as strong willed as he was, as the true pain in the ass that he was – he knew and I knew in that moment that we may have waited to long to decide to leave. We got through it, though. He did finally listen to me and the others who were by that point ordering him to stay put. We got on the ferry for the 3 day trip to Seattle the next night and by day 2 of that, he was already doing better – being away from Alaska truly did help him get a lot of his health back and helped bring some of my sanity back. 

Flash forward to the end of February 2015: The job I had wasn’t working for me. I was really, really good at it and I enjoyed it but Alex’s health had deteriorated again…he was in the hospital for a week..and was not doing well at all. It became violently obvious during that time that I needed to find a job closer to home or working from home that would allow me to be with him and take care of him while also making more money. Medical bills aren’t cheap and medications aren’t cheap. I told Alex every day that I’d have rather been paying bills than not have him, but that wasn’t enough for him either. He told me that he was watching me deteriorate, too, and that I wasn’t noticing it…and it was time to find something making more money. So I did. I spent every day putting in applications, checking in with friends, getting referrals…until I came upon my first job with the company I most recently left. It was perfect: working from home 75% of the time, being on the road 25% of the time, and being able to have some flexibility with my schedule. More money, too, which definitely didn’t hurt. I left the job I had in Bellevue at the end of March 2015 and began the new one in April 2015. 

I need to stress here that I in no way, shape, or form was not happy about that decision. I have always been a person who does what needs to be done. I have never once, and you will never hear me ever, complained about doing what was necessary to survive and thrive. Alex and I both knew that we were living on borrowed time by that point…and having the ability to be home and be with him as that clock ticked down is something I will forever be grateful for – no matter how horrific it was. 

And now here we are…moved back to Seattle, starting a new job, really starting to feel like I’m creating a new life…and it’s the first time I am feeling like I made a few decisions on my own without it having to be the way it is. I didn’t have as much choice in the matter with this, either, but the baking soda and vinegar amounts were under my control this time at the least. I made a choice to be happy – to thrive – to not do what needed to be done but what made the most sense for me and mine.  I’m feeling excited, nervous, apprehensive, and optimistic for the future for the first time in a while.

I don’t know where this road will take me, either…but none of us do. That’s the chain reaction: your decisions make your fate. In what feels like forever, I finally feel like I am doing things that will make me proud of myself again in the future. We will see what that future holds.