Connectivity Challenges

Lya Badgley|May 9, 2026|

Connectivity Challenges

Awake in Belgrade, Serbia, at three a.m.

Jet lag isn’t just about being tired—it’s more like being unmoored in time. Thoughts arrive more slowly, as if my brain is still back in Snohomish and everything has to travel a longer distance to reach me. Even small decisions take effort. I’ll stand in the kitchen and forget what I came there for.

My thinking feels… disconnected.

Connectivity (noun): the state or extent of being connected or interconnected.

It’s such a clean, reassuring definition—suggesting things that work as they should. Signals sent. Signals received. No friction. No interruption. We expect it from our internet, our electrical grids, our nervous systems.

But real life is messier.

My phone doesn’t work. Neither does the so-called premium cable package. Each sink in our apartment has its own temperamental water heater.

Laundry comes out stiff from the hard water. I stand in the grocery store knowing exactly what I need, but unable to read the labels.

Most of the time, I’m guessing.

Registering at the Ministry of the Interior

Clowns at the kiddie park

There’s a low hum of disorientation beneath the day. Not overwhelming, just constant. A sense that I no longer know how to move through the world the way I once did. Even simple things—getting across town, asking a question, figuring out how something works—require thought, planning, effort.

And then there’s the shift at home.

For over thirty years, I’ve been the one who manages the household.

Now, my husband has taken that role. He navigates, translates, figures things out, and then tries to explain it all to me. I try to understand.

It’s humbling in a way I didn’t expect. Not a loss, exactly, but a loosening. A reminder that so much of what I think of as “who I am” depends on being in a place where I understand how things work.

Here, I don’t.

And in that not-knowing, something quieter begins to surface…

I’m paying attention in a different way. Watching how people move through the city. Listening to the rise and fall of conversations I can’t fully understand. Noticing small kindnesses—someone offering me a seat on the bus, a shared smile when words fail. People here don’t smile as readily, so a smile is like found treasure.

Connection still happens. Just differently.

I’m out of sync in many ways, still reaching for systems that no longer quite fit. But I’m beginning to see that connectivity isn’t something fixed. It isn’t something we carry intact from one place to another.

It’s something we rebuild.

And this in-between space—this stretch of disconnection—is offering something I didn’t expect: the chance to be more present. To slow down. To look more closely. To find new ways of connecting that don’t rely on fluency or control, but on attention, patience, and a willingness to be open.

For now, that’s enough.

New Book Recommendation

I’ve long admired author Teri M. Brown—not only for her storytelling, but for the generous spirit she brings to the indie author community, showing up for others even when life is anything but easy. That same honesty and resilience pulse through her latest release, Peg Unhinged.

This is a novel that doesn’t pretend midlife is graceful. Peg is held together with duct tape and dark humor as she navigates menopause, divorce, and the unraveling of the life she thought she understood. Brown leans into it—the hot flashes, the brain fog, the emotional whiplash—and what emerges is both painfully real and unexpectedly funny. The humor isn’t decoration; it’s survival, sharpening the harder edges and making Peg’s missteps feel deeply human.

Many women will recognize themselves here: the loss of footing, the questioning, and the slow, reluctant rebuilding from a more authentic place.

Peg Unhinged is funny, raw, and grounded in emotional truth. If you’re drawn to stories of reinvention that don’t tidy the process into something neat or easy, this is well worth your time.

Thank you, as always, for reading and for being part of this journey.

Warmly,
Lya

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Lya Badgley

Author & Traveler