11/12/25
i’ll write about this because I have some time to do it, but we’re still not really out of it, or maybe halfway through it, or 3/4 of the way. But it was kind of a big deal and my mind is still not over the exhaustion of it. So today is Wednesday. Yesterday, we were on our way to NC, our longest trip ever which was gonna be about six hours, but just like two hours into it, we heard a noise- not super loud, maybe medium loud- on the road, and I looked back and our rig was tilted to one side, not straight. R saw it too and we pulled over and the leaf spring I guess it’s called, that I guess it’s connected to the wheel? had broken – it was rusty. First we called Progressive, but they ultimately couldn’t help with that, then we googled and saw we were right near an auto shop (Automundo 2, the guy was nice and helpful), and R drove it like 10 mph there, and the guy said if we got the replacement part(s), he could put it on for us. So it turned into this whole thing: R looked for a RV parts place, which was like 40 minutes away I think, we went to this place to get the parts, came back to Automundo where it was after hours and we just dropped it off, they said they would work on it tomorrow, then all the while, while trying to get through all these things, delays, waiting, anxiety, stress. I had to call the campsite we were going to check into that day and postpone it, and got a hotel nearby the auto place. The cheapest possible, and I guess you get what you pay for, because it was a depressing (to me) room, although R said it was fine. But the free breakfast was nice actually, and we found a really cool playground (Centennial Park playground in South Hill, Virginia), and there were cats at the auto place which were beautiful and friendly and cute that we admired and petted. But like 80% of this was stress for R and I. Thankfully, I think Hunter was spared a lot of it and just enjoyed all the good stuff about it lol. So then we ate and waited around this morning into afternoon (R was also a bit frantically looking online for some other parts he needed that he wanted the guy to put on) and finally by like 5 PM today, our rig was fixed (he also found something with our brake – the brake on our trailer like wasn’t connected), and we drove it to a nearby Cracker Barrel and had dinner there and actually are now parked in the Cracker Barrel parking lot, to stay overnight so that we don’t have to drive like four hours in the dark to get to the next place- we can do it tomorrow (had to postpone our check-in yet again today). But right now in this parking lot, we’ve got no electricity, no water and we’re trying not to use up the RV battery so I’m using a flashlight instead of turning all the lights on, so it feels like we’re just surviving, until we can get settled and on the grid at a real site again. also, this whole time today, I was trying to work. I thought we’d be at the campsite by today so I didn’t schedule off. I worked a little in the morning at the hotel, but mostly was working out of the truck all day, typing while it was moving and bouncing, or staying behind and typing while they went out to eat and do things. I hauled my laptop & gear out to the playground for a bit and typed while they played, and it was nice, but also very distracting. I had a lot of work too, so that added to the stress. So a lot of unexpected pressure, but still, adventure I guess. Learning. Will come out OK, better. We felt lucky because it could’ve been worse (we broke down within a one minute drive of Automundo), but we (at least I) also felt stupid for not preparing better and prevent it happening in the first place.
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I feel like if no one really tells you about how having kids is (and no one really does or can), that there is no winning with kids. Like as parents, we all fail. It just matters how much, how epically we fail. Like the range of our failures, like just trying to fail the least amount possible. but no one is like winning, with kids. Because you lose everything – you lose everything you were as an individual, everything you thought you were as a couple. but you gain…a person – you introduce this unblemished new star of a soul into the world, which is a miracle. It’s such a paradox, such irony, such a tragedy. Like Greek tragedy. you lose everything, but gain something supremely precious, BUT this precious thing just seems yours for some fleeting early years and is ultimately not really yours – they are their own. But which coming into their own, if you live to see it, may be the greatest joy of your life?
6:38 pm, at a Cracker Barrel in Virginia- Hunter just randomly said to me: ” you’re a booger. you’re a stinky lovey cow!!! no no no you’re a ghostbuster!”
11/13/25
this morning had another dream that Hunter got away from me. in the dream: I was in the truck, and saw R walk past with Hunter in the seat of a shopping cart, pushing him through a parking lot towards a store. It was very crowded, people everywhere. But Hunter saw me in the truck as he passed, and got excited and wanted to get out, and I saw him pointing, and R looked away for just one second and in that second, Hunter had jumped out of the cart, come and ran to me to my horror, and kind of lost where I was so he ran past me, and I watched him run past the truck I was in and I was already getting ready to get out to run after him as he disappeared into a crowd, and I never took my eyes off him as he disappeared and reappeared behind people, and I was moving towards him, but he was moving further away and got caught up in this literal, like cyclone of kids running around, but he wasn’t happy – I saw his face start to get stressed and worried and about to cry – and I was calling his name to come to me several times, in different ways I was calling until he finally, finally heard me, and came to me as i was getting to him, and I picked him up. I woke up, and the dream stayed in the back of my mind so that I felt extra protective of/anxious about him all day.
Marriage Journal 