Trigger warning: pet death, depression, SI, self harm. I don’t go into extensive detail. 

I’ve been having my midlife crisis of late. Searching for validation and doubting myself and wondering what my role in this life is. I’ve felt so defined by “working on my mental health”. I want other things besides that!

I took a break from the blog because I didn’t feel worthy, I felt insecure, and because Calzone the Pom got sick and I spent every minute I could on him. 

Calzone the Pomeranian died on November 19, 2025. He was fifteen years old. We had him for 9 years, adopted from PAWS in Chicago. I found out in 2023 I think that I don’t have the eggs to go through a retrieval process. I also wasn’t sure I wanted to be a mother to a human baby. Calzone was my baby. He was my heart and soul dog. I loved him more than I thought possible. I would have given nearly anything for more time. 

I honestly wanted to not be here anymore once he was gone. I want to be careful with how I word the next part of this. I self harmed to the point of medical urgent care visits. I abused substances. I didn’t sleep or take my meds. I didn’t want to feel relief because it felt like betraying him. I contemplated how and when that would happen, me not being here. I nearly one day followed through as I sat locked in the bathroom on the floor sobbing with the supplies in hand. But I love the people who love me. I didn’t want to hurt them. I had to believe Calzone wouldn’t have wanted that. 

I called my husband upstairs and I went to the hospital for a week to get stabilized. I tried electro convulsive therapy for three weeks. It works miracles for some people with bipolar disorder. It just made me lose my memory, and as I result I feel like I repeated three additional weeks of grief. I went back to spravato therapy and PHP and a million other therapists and psychiatrists. My weeks were all mental health, all the time. I exhausted my husband, who was also grieving. I exhausted my friends because my coping mechanism is distraction and looking for security that people still love me and want me around. 

On to the midlife crisis. I’m not a mom, I’m not working regularly. I’m not always good at keeping up with hobbies or housework. Who am I? Do I have value? Am I making anyone’s life or the world a better place? 

One thing I’ve loved since my 20’s was travel. Yesterday I read an Instagram post that said that travel isn’t a hobby but instead a class or status indicator. I really enjoy travel but I do notice I post a lot of it on social media. I love organizing trips ahead of time and having a list to check things off of “I’ve accomplished this unique thing”, but we all like those hearts on our posts, and even when I’m somewhere incredible, I’m homesick after 5 or so days. I get anxious and have panic moments and can be unkind to Brett when I’m scared and need him to take control during travel and I mask with strangers to the point of exhaustion. 

So is this a crisis, or as the internet said a mid-life identity check point? 

To me, travel as a hobby includes the researching the itinerary and making a plan, the photography aspect because I’ve loved photography since high school classes developing images in the dark room, it’s a personal growth experience, a cultural experience which ticks my anthropology focused brain, a creative writing experience, and it’s an experience seeing landscapes I could never see in the Midwest, being in awe of the beauty of the world, when sometimes it feels like there are so many things going wrong. But it’s true that it’s a status or a consumption signal too. Let’s be honest, I get to travel a lot, more than some people. I know how lucky I am. And I love the ‘gram. I love having awkward and funny things happen to me that I can relate in a story when I’m worried I’m not interesting enough. 

This is a travel blog, and yes it discusses mental health, so I won’t go on about what I’ve thought about regarding my other hobbies or future job identity checkpoints. For the future I’m just going to focus on being gentle with myself about the good and the bad of the life I live. I can’t say I won’t ever doubt myself again about travel. But I do know there’s a lot more beauty to see out there.