Red Wine Wednesday

High point?  Ha.  Low point?  Perhaps.  Turning point?  Most definitely.

Emails about waiting for the other side to come back with a response.  Ongoing confusion over the AA/BA handling.  Intransigence on 5F.  Rate study delays.  Subcommittee weed inquiries to "start getting on the phone."  And all the while, retreating.  All the while, hiding.  All the while, waiting.  Planning.

Closing in on two months before the departure south for a 70-day break.  Closing in on dropping the obligations at SBTS and Dal.  The patience is hard as the tendency is to look beyond even the "trip of a lifetime" to a future free from the current preoccupations.

So it was in the past, so it is in the present.  In 2009, staring at 40,000 in debt and 20,000 in cash, you ran until the money was gone.  In 2011, the debt paid, and a few dollars to your name, it was a new challenge that beckoned, but fizzled when the extent of the work to come proved uninspiring.

And thus the promise made in the swimming hole in central Vietnam.  To return and make an effort at restarting the career in earnest, at giving the settled down version of life in Halifax a shot, at pursuing the condo and the partnership.  The commitment made, the 1% ownerships acquired, things fell into place, as neatly as you could have imagined.

For a time.  Sanction and the mill revival and the wind/royalty arbitrations on the return, "Ambitious" landing revelry, the last of the wonders, AM Kili courtship, the international football tournaments and FA cups, the primaries and the hip and the general, Bali and the 2008 NZ reunions, Islay and the eclipse.  As 5 years go, it has been quite a wonderful, magical tour.  And three nephews and a niece amidst it all.

Yet, ever since 2015, the yearning for a move on has been growing ever stronger, stoked by each passing trip and passing month.  To get back to the freedom of the backpacking days, before it is too late.  To do it one last time, and do it properly.  To, in JK's words, for once become a writer and not do somebody else's work. To, in WW's words, walk free and own no superior.

The plan is in place.  It just requires the right timing, hence the frustration necessitated by the hesitation.  Although that lends the drama to it. Heightens the stakes, ensures you are certain.

It has been too long since I have read Whitman properly.  But I am moving back in his direction.  Soon.  Soon.  Everyday is one step nearer in that direction.