Today I am travelling solo for the first time in about two decades. My friend the Robin is moving to Pensacola, and when she was visiting during the winter holiday I drunkenly offered to drive down to hang with her while she’s apartment shopping and checking out the city. I never really solidified the plan until about two days ago, and I picked up a rental car yesterday which was a learning experience of its own.
This is a trip I will hopefully be making much more often once my friend moves. I haven’t visited Pensacola in years. I firmly believe that my delicate artistic constitution requires contact with a major ocean at least once a year, but ideally I need to visit two or three times, so having Robin installed at the Gulf will certainly help me get out there more often.
Something Marlin and I have talked about recently is getting out more and taking trips again now that Minnow is older. Minnow is still a bit of a handful and fairly unpredictable but we need to just make it work and do our best and find a way to enjoy the time, even if we have a temperamental child in tow.
This will be a very short trip. We probably won’t get to visit the beach, but the forecast is warm and I think it will be good for me to get out and run around a bit in a sunny place. It will be like old times, when we used to drive around in her car for hours on end. I’ve struggled a lot with depression this winter. Over the past few days negative thoughts have been creeping in, whispering in my ear my family doesn’t love me and I would be better off dead, that I shouldn’t go on this trip, I’ll just ruin it for Robin, like I ruin everything with my terrible moods, and I should just die instead. Which means I definitely should go on this trip. Hopefully a location change will help reset my brain and mood a bit.