iFrustrated

I have not written a compassionate travel blog for what seems like a long, long time. I will tell you about the lag time - in a moment.

First...

It has been so long since I told you - showed you - that you have been with me. It has been so long that I will be writing about my last five-weeks of adventures... the last emotionally-charged roller-coaster-ride of-a-week in Turkey, two sweet Bianca-and-Eli-filled weeks in Germany, one precious-rockin'-with-Andy-and-meeting-Geoff-in-the-shire week in England, and three seeing-the-amazing-history-of-Delft-through-the-eyes-of-a-new-sister-friend-Paulina filled days in the Netherlands... long after I have arrived home in Brattleboro, Vermont. Back when I am standing firmly on the soil of the US of A.

At this very moment, I am writing in Mint-style on a Jet Blue aircraft, flying in the air above the Atlantic Ocean, heading east, to Boston.

When I say flying, I mean... we are in the clouds, Baby. It is all white up here.

When I say Mint, I mean... I am flying in style...

Michelle and Jessica are flying in style with me. Their ashes are in Uzbekistan, Turkey, Malta, Germany, England, and the Netherlands. Since there are some cremation ashes left in the little glass jars that have carried them across land and sea, and through the air, Meesh and Jess are flying home (in style) with me.

That drink (above) is a spicy margarita. It is the first of three spicy margaritas that I drank during my 8-hour flight. Those almonds were my first meal of the day, along with that first spicy margarita. This is what I started out looking like:

This is what I looked liked 3 margaritas later:

I kinda look the same in both pictures. Inside though, I was feeling numb and a bit loopy in this second shot.

Ok, back to my long, long tale about the long, long lapse in writing...

It has been so long since the last blog, iHope you have not forgotten me. iHope you will forgive me for not writing for so long. For so long, iHave been caught up in the dysfunctional iWorld. iFrustrated. iCould use a listening ear.

I have tried to write. I have opened my laptop with the intention to write. I have said to myself: I am going to write today. I have said to those around me: I am going to write today.

I have named the writing I will do. I have said: I am going to do rainy day writing...airport writing...wake-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night writing. I have said I am going to do (any reason/fill-in-the-blank) writing. I have said I need to write. And then, I have sat at my laptop and tried to write.

I love to write. I love you. You may recall the post (while we were in Cappadocia), basically a love letter to you about these sentiments, of my pulsating heart truth - that I write for us. And yet, there has been a BIG lag time since my last post. Maybe you waited so long for my post that you gave up. Just thinking that is making me cry. The endless spicy margarita's served on top of sleep deprivation may be a contributing factor to my sense of emotional vulnerability.

Maybe you have been asking, "Where are you, Ami? What are you doing? Why aren't you writing?" If you have been wondering these things, this post is for you. I feel I owe you an explanation. I also need to vent. iFrustrated.

My iPhone is the culprit. That is it. That is the reason. Well, to be accurate, lag-time blame could be laid upon a number of other reasons, too. I will come back to iPhone frustration.

Lag-time blame could be explained by (1) a lack of reliable internet, (2) doing time, (3) being time, and (4) sleepy time.

I imagine just about everyone has experienced a lack of reliable internet. I imagine just about everyone has felt similarly when we can not connect.

When the internet works, technology feels like magic thread. The internet weaves together people from around the planet. It is like magic that we - from the USA, Europe, Turkey, Africa, etc. are able to communicate with each other, in one place, at the same time. It is freaking awesome.

Also, there are quite a variety of platforms for communicating. Most times, I feel there are too many options.

Aside from the overwhelming amount of ways we have to connect via the internet, technology feels magnificent. It seems nothing short of magical. What we are able to do with a modern computer must be beyond anything most of our ancestors could have dreamed up.

When we can not connect to the internet, I think we can agree, the disconnect feels like a nasty beast or like the discomfort of high barometric pressure. When tech does not work, it can feel extremely frustrating. It can downright give me a headache.

I think that, when the internet is down, it feels frustrating because we are suddenly disconnected from people. At least, it feels like we are disconnected. I mean... we were connected in all sorts of ways and then - BOOM - the connection is gone. When the internet goes down, it is sudden.

When I can not connect to my blog-writing platform - I feel disconnected from you. I imagine that me not sending off a blog into the ethernet has you feeling disconnected from me, like I have forgotten you, like you do not matter.

I have not forgotten you. You are crucial to me.

Doing times are those moments when I am swimming, climbing, dancing, riding, walking, running to catch a plane, train, bus, boat, automobile, person... when I am talking, eating, looking, listening. Doing-times are when I am living my life. During doing-times, I am thinking: I will write about this. I am thinking: Later, I will let you know that you are here with me. When I am in doing times, I am in the present moment and you are energetically, spiritually, and heartily with me.

Being times are those moments when I am thinking, feeling, processing, or just... breathing. I allow myself time to think and feel and process.

I seem to need an extraordinary amount of processing time when riding the relationship rollercoaster. Sometimes, when I have not written for a while, it is because I am going through the wheee and whoaaa of the relationship roller coaster ride.

At the very end of my time in Turkey I went through an especially harrowing section of the wheee and whoaaa expressions of the relationship roller coaster ride.

And then there are just-breathing times. Of late, early mornings, late nights, our online meditation group meetings, and cloud-watching seem to be my favorite just-breathing times. I am especially fond of just-breathing times.

And... sleepy time. During the doing, being, and breathing times, I plan to write. I want to write. Then brain fog sets in, my eyes shut down, I drift away... away from writing... Then there is a new day.

Mostly, right now, though, I am blaming writing-lag-time on my iPhone. I am mighty frustrated with my iPhone. iFrustrated. I am calling this experience iFrustration.

iFrustration sets in when I begin to write and something originating from my iPhone stops me. I have pictures that tell a story. I want to tell you, show you the story. I write a little bit and then, while attempting to transfer a picture or video from my phone to my laptop, things go sideways.

The sideways thing has had a number of incarnations. The most current sideways experience is that my iPhone 6S sends me a message stating I have no more storage. When this happens I can not take another picture. I can not even unload pictures onto Google Drive. I can not even write a text on WhatsApp. I can not even "manage your storage."

When I try to "manage" my storage, I go to Settings... I go to General... I go to iPhone storage. And this is what I see:

I deleted all the Apps I could access via my laptop or did not truly need. I have deleted Facebook Direct Message, Trusted Housesitters, CouchSurfing, and Airbnb. I even deleted Uber and Bolt, which I do use while traveling. I deleted Pandora and my Music library. I deleted Libby and Venmo, which I can not use while traveling anyhow. I have deleted pictures, videos, and conversational threads from WhatsApp and text messages. I am regretful of these deletes. Still, the iPhone storage looks like the screenshot I have shared with you here (above).

I have watched the dark gray iOS bar get longer and longer. I have scratched my head and wondered, What the hell is this iOS, and Why is it using up so much storage? I researched iOS. iOS is the iPhone's operating system. I only have one. Each time the iPhone updates, the old operating system is deleted. I think. And now, I can not update my operating system. Because iPhone deems my phone too antiquated for any further updates.

While I was in England, I asked Andy's housemate, Anthony, if he would look at my phone and help me trouble shoot the problem. My thinking is, there must be something I am not seeing, not doing. There must be a solution. Anthony checked my iPhone storage. This is what we saw:

He and I noticed a discrepancy. You too may be noticing a discrepancy between the two screenshots. My iPhone shows 7.18 GB of iOS storage. It also shows a huge gray bar of iOS storage used, well beyond 7.18 GB. So, what is happening between the two photos?

Is there something Anthony and I missed? Can you help me out here? If you can, please email me. I await your advice.

Until this conundrum is figured out, I am frustrated. iFrustrated.