Dec 7, 2021 Life Update

 All is well in the MERJ household. The dark cloud has turned into more of a grey cloud. I know it's the apps that are bringing me down and the history tied to them. So far, I've been keeping the Ipad off. It hasn't stopped me from checking them, just lessened how often I checked them. Luckily the potential Bad Guy unmatched himself. Yay!

I was torn yesterday between going to Maryland or not. I was in like a trance that I just started doing something so I could get out of mental turmoil. I washed the dishes and took the trash to the dump and got gas. All those things needed doing (well not the trash so much), so there wasn't any harm. I even loaded up a bag of supplies. By 2p, I was pretty convinced I was going to travel at 5a this morning.

Then after my last meeting of the day, I got notification that the Christmas Cookie Making package I was expecting had shipped. It should be here by the weekend. Which meant I needed to stay to receive it because I don't want it sitting on the stoop until I got back.

The other thing I discovered yesterday in my angst was that there was a train from my town to DC that was pretty much the same travel time as driving. Easy right! It did leave at weird hours which under normal circumstances would be okay but I live in a rough neighborhood. So it was leaving my house after dark in an Uber (scary) Plus wearing a mask for 6 hours. Was that worse than sitting on my butt and driving myself for 6 hours?

I couldn't decide. 

While there was a big price difference $50 (gas for driving) vs $150-200 (train trip), it wasn't significant enough to really factor in. I'm way under budget for the year and the convenience was worth it. 

I think COVID was a big factor against the train travel more than the leaving in the dark of night. I'm technically vaccinated but is that enough? I haven't been keeping up with it enough to really know. 

I think even outside of COVID, I have only had access to germs from the grocery store. I just think an Amtrak train, an Uber driver, and possible Metro in DC was going to be a lot for my system. 

And while I've more or less gotten used to wearing a mask, I haven't had to wear it for 6 hours. 

But then when my trip got cut down from 3 weeks to 2 weeks, it got me thinking about the train again. 3 weeks felt like forever so I was taking a lot of personal stuff from home. But 2 weeks felt more manageable with only a few basic things like clothes. Which is another pro for taking the train.

I don't know. There is something a little freeing about just getting on the train and letting life happen. 

Tangentially, Amtrak was offering a $500 (really $400 after annual fee) travel credit for $1k spend in 90 days. That made me think, maybe I'll use that as a motivator to take 2-3 trips to DC (or elsewhere) next year. But really? Am I having one of those Fantasies again. After not travelling to see my family in 6 years am I suddenly going to make 3 trips in one year? Haha. 

I think just the ease of the train made me giddy. I had mostly been focused on any travel requiring airline travel and the nearest international airport was 90 miles away. 

Our company just gave us 2 more holiday days so yay! I think this is even more reason to leave the house. So I think for the most part (60%) I've decided to go to Maryland this weekend, it's just a matter of train vs drive.