Eventually

I had started another post but deleted it.  I found it to be hollow and very fake.  I think I was trying to cheer myself up, but I'm not sure that is really what I want- or need- to do.  I reminded myself yet again, this blog is supposed to keep me honest, this is my blog for my real feelings, no matter what they are.  The "phony happy" stuff is for my other blogs that the family reads.

I think I'm just super down right now because J is in Philadelphia for the week on business, and after a few weeks of sunshine it's back to being rainy and dreary again here.  Combine the two and I'm just mopey.  J thankfully doesn't have to travel overnight much, and seldom for this long.  So our nights apart are few. And in being honest, there is a little piece of me that is somewhat relieved for a night or two alone.  I can miss J at the same time that I enjoy the evening to myself.  I can shuttle aside the domestic duties of dinner and a clean house, in favor of frozen pizza and reading for hours in my pajamas.  Truth be told, even five months of staying at home now, and I still can't stand doing the housework thing.  It's just not my forte.  I am growing to love my pottery more and more, but when I have to push myself away from my work table and clay and glazes, to go empty the dishwasher, I do get a bit annoyed.  And that's just me being selfish.  We have a beautiful home that I absolutely do not take for granted, and I should be ashamed at myself for not wanting to keep it at its cleanest.

Anyhow.

I've talked before about being alone and being lonely, and the difference between the two.  I am still doing fine as I go through my days alone.  Even to make a small pottery piece there are so many steps involved- shaping the wet clay and firing it once it's dried, glazing it and then firing it again, photographing it and listing it online, packaging and shipping it.  Yes, even just for one tiny bead or charm.  As an artist, being alone most of the time is the key to creativity, and there really isn't any other way to spend your time if you are working on a project.  And I'm okay with that, and my personality is perfectly suited to working by myself.  I see J every morning before he goes to work, we talk at least once a day on the phone, and then he comes straight home every evening as soon as he can.  Usually by 8pm, but that's a part of our marriage that I've learned to accept.  With the new responsibilities he took on when we moved here, later nights at work are just part of the normal routine.  Nothing I do or say is going to get him home to me any sooner.

I have been feeling a bit lonely these days.  Okay, really lonely.  I've come to realize that other than J, I am alone in my current world.  Maybe that's being a bit melodramatic, but it's how I've been feeling.  I've been talking to my long-distance best friend again, having our marathon chats on the phone.  Despite her severe depression, she's been my best friend for almost 13 years now and I just don't want to give up on her, no matter how much she brings me down.  I've about convinced J to take us "back home" for a weekend visit soon, so I can see her.  She was overjoyed at just the thought of having lunch with me.  But she and my other closest friend, are both 300 miles and 5 hours away.  I don't have anyone here.  

Recently I had lunch out with one of the ladies I used to work with here, and tomorrow I'm having lunch with another former co-worker.  But you know sharing an hour with someone, talking on the phone or having a meal out, just isn't the same.  They are barely more than acquaintances, not the type who would drop whatever they are doing at that moment to come pick me up if I was stranded.  I don't really have anyone like that now in my life, except for J.  And lately that's made me sad.  I miss my friends from my past life.  I miss my old city.  I deeply miss my old house.  I miss all the places that I used to go- alone, with girlfriends, with J.  Truthfully, there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about our old life.  J confesses that he is the same.  I know he has been equally as unhappy in our new life.  He too left behind friends and favorite haunts.  Neither of us has really connected with anyone new here, even after five years.  He tells me at least once a week, he has never been more sorry about anything than he is about taking this job and moving us.

But that situation is not going to change.  We are not going to move back to our old town.  Even if we did, we couldn't have our old house back and probably couldn't even get into our old neighborhood.  It wouldn't and couldn't ever be the same.  Even the little bagel shop we used to walk to every single Sunday morning, has closed down.  It's funny, I lived in that town for 13 years, and I complained about it all the time.  Truth is, it had nothing to do with where I lived. It was who I lived with.  When I was with W, I was miserable, so I blamed a lot of my unhappiness on the town- he moved me from my hip hometown on the beach to a little hick town for his new job.  I took out my anger at W, on the town instead.  For ten years I put it down, I told everyone how stupid and backwards the town was and how I hated it, and hated living there, and I just wanted to get away.  Substitute the word "town" for "husband" and you see where I was coming from.  Yet once I was with J, my world changed from the inside out and suddenly that little town wasn't so bad after all.  Suddenly I grew to love it, and now here I sit, removed from it almost five years ago, and I miss everything about it.

Our routine was basically the same back then.  We worked together, we took lunch together when we could.  I worked a crazy shift- 4am until 1pm.  I went home in the afternoons and got the chores done, worked on my art or relaxed with a book, then he came home later in the evening and we had dinner.  On the weekends we ran around and did fun things like estate sales or went up to the mountains.  Pretty much nothing has changed for us.  Except our home, our neighborhood, our friends.  We do the same things here, but it isn't the same.  I don't like this house, I hate this neighborhood, we don't have real friends.  This time, when I say I hate this town, I really AM talking about the town.  But, this is where J and I decided together to move.  J isn't crazy about this town either, but we are stuck here for a good long while.  We are trying to make the most of it, but it's been rough going.  If J and I didn't have each other, I'm not sure what either of us would do.  J leans on me as much as I do him.  Moving here made our relationship stronger, but it also made our world so much smaller.

I know it's my fault I haven't made friends.  I had plenty of opportunities when I was working, to make a friendship stick.  I just didn't meet anyone I truly clicked with.  Finding a good friend is like falling in love, you know it the instant you meet the person.  Friendships shouldn't be forced or contrived.  And having things in common with another person, is not a guarantee that a relationship should be formed.  Not one person I worked with, actually lives in my town.  I drove 25 miles to get to the office, and everyone lived all over the map, none of them close by.  I know there are websites devoted to bringing couples together, or seminars on how to meet that special person.  But, where is the help in finding a friend?  Where is the local hangout for folks looking for friendship only?  Will I meet her at the dry cleaners, the grocery store, the garden center?  Those are the places I go.

I already have my soulmate, I just want someone to meet for coffee on Saturday afternoons.  Someone who doesn't live 300 miles away. 

MISS GEE

Our old house- I cry every time I see the photos.  Our life was perfect there.

Can't Stop Falling

This is almost my favorite time of the year.  At least it's getting close.  And I am ready for summer to be over with.  I am not a summertime person, and I never have been.  Even growing up on the sandy gulf beaches, I hated summer.  I'm not prissy by any means, but I hate to sweat, I hate bugs, I hate the heat.  I hate summer.  In the summer I rarely want to go anywhere or do anything, if it means going outside.  I know, I have my yard and my flowers, but once I get all of that going in the spring I usually enjoy the views from inside the house.  In the summer, I am lazier than any other time of the year.  I have a tendency to move less and I don't wander too far from the nearest ceiling fan or AC vent.  Every year when summer arrives, I am ready for it to fly by and be gone.  I have heard of SAD- Seasonal Affective Disorder- and I know I suffer from it. Most people get it in the winter- being cooped up inside, growing plumper, shorter periods of daylight.  I get it every summer, and have for almost my entire life.  I've always chalked it up to my aversion to heat, or perhaps I have an aversion to hot weather because I have SAD.  Not sure which is the chicken and which is the egg.  

We had a mild summer this year, for the Deep South.  Very few days that reached the 90 degree mark.  Right now the mornings are cool enough to open up the windows, but just briefly before the humidity creeps in.  It's just a tease.  For me, any day above 60 is too hot!  Yes, I should live in North Dakota or Maine, you are right.  In fact I'm ssssoooooo ready for summer to be over, I've already started bringing up my autumn decorations from the basement and placing them around the house.  J came home last night and said, why is there a giant pumpkin sitting on the hearth?  Right now he's consumed with baseball and golf- sports of summer- and I'm already thinking about what I want to bake for the holidays.  I'm much more active in the colder months, as far as exercise goes, I want to go hike or walk in the neighborhood.  Normally my depression lifts in the winter as well.  I lose more weight, socialize with friends more, and I just feel better about my life and myself when the thermometer drops. Go figure.  At the same time, my spirit is much more calm and content in the winter.  Nothing says settle down and relax for awhile like a good book, a fire, and a cup of cocoa.  Seriously.

But another problem I have in the fall and winter, is restlessness.  Not truly "cabin fever", as in I'm stuck in the house and can't get out.  We get one nice little snowfall here every winter, and that's it.  I get restless because I love the cool weather, the trees turning, the local fall festivals, the holidays.  I want to do and see and take it all in, and I know I can't.  On any given Saturday in the fall, there are 3 or 4 festivals or fairs nearby, and I feel like I want to get to every single one.  This Saturday I'm taking in two, and I'm already mapping out where to go next Saturday.  My restlessness also causes me great frustrations too, and I do get that caged animal sensation, like I just have to go do something.  Most of the time, it's just wanting to be outside in the crisp air and looking up at the immaculate blue sky.  Unlike summer, when I want to blink my eyes and make it go away, I want autumn and winter to get here soon and hang around.  J will walk around a street fair with me, but he doesn't really care about them- he goes because he knows as an artist at heart, I love getting out there to see what other folks are making and thinking up.  I don't rip off people's ideas, but I do get inspired to go back home and create my own art.  And I buy a lot at festivals, too.  :)

My depression has been horrible lately, and the last few weeks I have really been struggling.  Stumbling and Aimless.  I feel as though as soon as I make strides in the right direction, I have a month or so when I slide backwards and can't seem to dig my claws in there to make the descent stop, or at least slow it down a bit.  I land back at the bottom with a thud.  It takes me awhile to pick myself up and start to climb out of that pit again.  Most of the time I've convinced myself that I will never reach the top, no matter how hard I fight or how long I keep fighting.  Hell, I'm nearing 50 and I haven't made it yet, so what makes me think I ever can?  I have a pessimistic nature, and I'm sure that goes hand in hand with depression.  I want to shake it off, and anyone with truly deep depression knows that it's not that easy.  I go to bed every night making a mental list of the things I want to accomplish the next day, and in the reality of that tomorrow I might get one or two checked off.  J told me I make it hard on myself by being too ambitious.  Some days I understand he's right.  Some days I worry he really means, I can't keep up with the normal people so don't even have the hope of trying.  I've never been like this at work, I've just always been this way when it comes to "me".  I've always been the superstar employee at every office, but a total slug outside the walls of my employers.  I don't know why that drive, dedication, energy and pursuit of perfection, does not carry over into my personal life.  It's all "me", so why do I seem to have a split personality?

I've told myself repeatedly over the last week, that as soon as my wrist completely heals, things will be better once the pain subsides.  But since 2006, there has been some piece of my body at all times, that is in chronic pain and has required surgery.  As soon as that area gets better, something else on me breaks down.  I feel as though J has not known me to be in any state other than pain.  Sure I was already beginning to struggle with depression and loads of self-esteem issues when we started dating in 2003.  The years we dated before we married, he only saw me on weekends, and I think the euphoria of being in love carried me along whenever I was with him.  During the week, when I was at home alone, the depression, the general aches and pains, the feelings of doubt consumed me.  But come Friday nights and until I left his company on Sunday evenings, I wore my happiest face for him.  And I wasn't faking, it was real overwhelming joy to be at his side.  Once we were married, I couldn't keep that up 24/7 anymore.  Don't get me wrong, I still feel that sappy love for J, that will never change.  I just have a harder time pushing through the rest of the crap.  I can't smile all the time anymore.  And I apologize to him constantly because of it, which I know annoys him but I feel compelled to do it nonetheless.  It's just been hard these past few weeks, watching him have to come home and do some of the housework, because I was in too much pain to do it.  He tells me, that's what he's here for.  I'm like, to load the dishwasher?  He's often talked about getting someone to come in once or twice a week to do the cleaning, but as sweet as his offer is meant to be, it just makes me feel worse about myself.  As in, I can't keep my own friggin' home clean, how pathetic am I?  Sometimes I feel like J's needy kid, not his wife.  And dammit, I'm older than him!

I am hoping to soon put this summer behind me.  The latest pain that's plagued me since January, and the recovery from the surgery.  The way I am still questioning whether or not I should have quit my job in April (and by the way I just found out my replacement already quit, she hated my boss too).  My floundering about without any sense of direction for my daily existence.  It's very unbecoming, to be my age and at this stage of my life, without knowing what I want to do or where I want to go- and end up.  I want to get over the loneliness and anxieties that all the big changes this year have brought into my world.  I am trying to go against my nature and instead be optimistic.  2013 is winding down.  2014 has just got to be better.  I have just got to be better.

Oh man I'm ready for the next snowstorm.  Bring it on.

MISS GEE

Recovering

Today I literally have all day to get this post done, and that's a good thing, because it will probably take that long.  My surgery was two days ago, and even though I'm wearing the brace I can still use my fingers.  Slowly.  It's not as painful as I expected it to be, and hopefully when I get my stitches out next week, I will start to see improvements.  Right now, I just have to be careful.  It's small things, like remembering to set my coffee cup on the left side of the desk so I don't accidentally pick it up with my right hand.  Doctor's orders are one thing, but natural reflexes are hard to hold down.  So right now, I'm just supposed to be taking it easy.  The surgery was on the tendons attached to my thumb, but I'm not to use my right hand at all except for scratching my nose or petting the cats.  I read online that total recovery can take up to six months.  My doctor told me 2-3 months, so I'm putting my faith in him and not the web.  The surgery was the quickest one I've ever had- I got to the surgical center at ten minutes before noon, got called back before I even sat down, and we were leaving for home shortly after 1pm.  I came out of the anesthesia before they even got me back to my room.  And so far, no pain, just a twinge now and then if I bend my hand the wrong way.

So I have all day to blog (both write and read!) because J has to work late tonight.  It happens once in awhile.  Not an hour late, but late late. It's hard watching him walk out the door before sunrise, knowing he won't be home until close to midnight.  When he kissed me goodbye he said, see you tomorrow, because he knows I will probably be in slumberland by the time he gets back home.  But the 400+ employees that he is over, are scattered over several shifts and a dozen departments.  Occasionally he has to stay during the night shift so he can see those guys, and more than that, be seen.  He usually will take dinner with them, and their dinner break is at 10pm.  Next week he will have another late evening, because he has to go meet with another group of his employees who work out of a satellite location.  The week after that, he will be in Philadelphia for three days for corporate meetings.  I'll be missing him a lot in September it seems. But since I'm not doing much around the house right now anyhow, I guess it's as good a time as any for him to take care of work.

We had a nice trip to New Orleans.  I actually hurt my back several days before we left- one of those old age things.  I leaned over to pick up something off the closet floor and wham!  I pulled a muscle or pinched a nerve, because here it is 2 1/2 weeks later and I'm still shuffling around with a backache.  So we didn't walk about NOLA as much as I had hoped.  Enough to see plenty of sights, but not nearly enough.  There's a lot in that city to take in.  I've been going there all my life, and haven't seen half of it.  But yet it's small enough that when you're there, you don't feel swallowed up.  If you've never been it truly is worth at least one visit.  It really is the Big Easy.  Outdoor cafes and shops, museums, a trolley that for $1.25 will take you from one end of the city to the other, a leisurely ride down the great Mississippi on a paddleboat.  Culture and art and music everywhere.  And oh my god the food!  The city can be whatever you want it to be, and no one there looks at you when you walk down the sidewalk as though you don't belong there.  In New Orleans, they want you there with them!  As far as I'm concerned, if you'd never heard of Hurricane Katrina- you would never know it had happened.  The city is as clean and colorful and alive as it ever was.  J had never been pre-Katrina, so he was surprised on our first visit together a few years ago.  I never tire of visiting there.  Even the most dilapidated building oozes charm.

This past weekend, I was a frenzy of activity, getting the house cleaned up from top to bottom, and prepping a few meals in advance.  I had several custom orders to make from my Etsy shop- including one lady who ordered seven pieces of pottery- and still two more to fill as well.  Unfortunately the things I already have listed are still not selling, but as I said before, I know I'm not going to get rich ten bucks at a time, nor do I plan to even try.  I asked the doctor about getting back to my pottery, and he said it would actually be an excellent therapy to help build my hand strength back up.  Hopefully he will give me the go ahead next week at my follow up appointment.  Anyhow, I just wanted to make sure that I had taken care of everything that I could, so that this week I could set any worries aside and just rest.  J is wonderful about helping with the housework- the man was single for over a decade when I met him so he knows how to clean up after himself.  He swears he has forgotten how to do laundry, but I'm sure I could give him a crash course if need be.

Even amid all the housework for me and extensive yardwork for J, we managed to have our typical fun as well.  Saturday morning we had to go run an errand in the next county over (J has a particular place where he buys all his fertilizer and such), so we stopped in at their farmers market.  It was small but bountiful!  I stopped to look at each and every booth and I thought to myself, wow I could almost do all of our grocery shopping right here, and wouldn't it be so much healthier.  The market was full of the things I expected to see like veggies and fruits and herbs.  And I was delighted to see items like bacon, beef, fish, eggs, milk, butter, cheese.  I found breads, pastas, cakes, cookies, salsa, jams, honey, nuts, pet treats, teas, soaps, flowers, wine, beer, even a locally made coffee. Someone was even selling pottery, and there was a colorful little food truck making crepes for breakfast.  We have a ton of farmers markets in the area, I just don't normally go to them, I am always taken in by that buy one get one free ad from the big chain grocery store instead.  And the farmers market in our town is actually pretty small and we've been disappointed the few times we've gone.  But the next town over is a bit more affluent, yet is not too far to drive to get the freshest and healthiest, wholesome ingredients.  And the farmers market there is right next to the organic grocery store, which we sadly do not have in our little town.  I know the frozen diet dinners are low in calories, but am I really doing my body any favors by digesting all those unpronounceable chemicals?  I asked J, what do you think? Can we meet all our needs at the farmers market?  He said he would leave that decision up to me, but wondered what we will do for our condiments like mayo and ketchup.  Okay, so maybe I would still need to run into the store to grab up a few things.  Pardon me as I stole these photos from their wonderful website.

We took in our favorite auction on Saturday night, where I picked up a few new vintage kitchenware items and a spectacular oil painting of a lighthouse in a beautiful frame that I got for $10 because no one else wanted it.  I got two Longaberger baskets, which I've collected since the early 1980's, for $5 each because no one bid against me on those either.  Even the smallest of these baskets, sell for $45 new and the ones I bought were dated 1987.  The latest item that I've been collecting are old washboards with glass inserts, and I was able to snap up another one for $10.  I've seen these selling on Etsy for $40.  J added to his coin collection, and also bought a box of vintage beer steins, he said with intentions of reselling them online.  We are still mulling over how to start up selling all our vintage finds.  Etsy and eBay are bombarded with folks doing the same, and unless we repurpose the items into something fresh and never before seen, I'm not sure online is the route we want to go.  There are plenty of antique stores and shows around here, but again, everyone else is doing the same thing.  I have a friend who I lunched with last week, and she does this as a side business.  She has a booth set up at an antique mall, but she says she pretty much breaks even every month.  To me, that wouldn't be worth the time and energy.  I wouldn't mind doing a show or festival now and again, at least that's something interactive and a great day spent outdoors.  We'll see, J and I are tossing the idea around for 2014.

But for this week, and for the next day or two, I'm just bumming around the homestead.   We've got a baseball game on Saturday night- looks like our team will make the playoffs this year and J is banking on being able to go to the World Series- but for now I've promised to go with him this weekend as the season is winding down.  I was able to make some pottery this morning- just new beads because I don't have to use my wrist or thumb- all I do there is gently roll the clay around in the palm of my hand. But I'm going to keep at it, and eventually I know they will start selling.  I already have the clay, the glaze, the kiln, and the time.  It doesn't cost anything but the nominal listing fee on Etsy.  I do confess that since we returned from our trip, I've been tearing through paperbacks pretty quickly.  I think I've read four since last week, and will probably finish another one today.  I will read just about anything, but I have a strong preference for non-fiction.  History, biographies, true crime.  Truth really is stranger- and vastly more interesting- than fiction.  I "inherited" several boxes of paperbacks from J's grandmother before she passed away, but she read light romances.  She made me promise her I would read them, that I just wouldn't haul them off for trade at the used bookstore.  So they are sitting amid my collection in the basement, and eventually- when I have nothing else to read- I will get around to Granny's Danielle Steel and Debbie Macomber books.  Who can callously go back on a promise made to a dying grandmother!

I've been spending the last few days in my favorite spot, the chair in the corner of our bedroom.  It huddles next to a window overlooking our backyard.  After J brought me home from my surgery, I asked him to please fill all the feeders and put out fresh water for the animals.  Sunflowers and seeds for the birds, corn and peanuts for the squirrels.  I littered the yard with old bread.  Sitting in my chair I can see most of the feeders.  I can see the two scraggly "trees", really just overgrown bushes that J mows around.  It gives the birds someplace quick to dart off to, after they steal a seed or two from the feeder.  Soon it will be cool enough that I can actually open the windows and feel the breezes and become engulfed in the nonstop birdsong.  But even so, with the windows closed, I can hear the unmistakable chatter of the chickadees and the caw caw of the crows.  Yesterday I sat and watched as the big black birds chased away our neighborhood red-tailed hawk.  We have dozens of species of birds in our area, some seasonal, some taking up residence in one of the many birdhouses we have all over our property.  Nothing is as sweet as watching a baby bluebird poke its head out, waiting for mom or dad to return with a snack.  But we also see plenty of deer, raccoons, possums, armadillos, bats, foxes, coyotes, owls, turkeys, rabbits, chipmunks, wood rats and mice.  Not to mention the non-fuzzy fellows in my flower gardens like snakes, giant frogs, skinks, gorgeous bees, turtles, dragonflies, and more types of spiders and butterflies than I can keep count of.  You name it, they are in our little backyard habitat.  We welcome them all.  And it's always an "oh my gosh come and look!" moment for us.

But there's also something magical about that old chair in the corner.  Whenever I sit down in it, whether to read or just watch the suburban nature show for awhile, the cats seem to always find me.  They can be sound asleep upstairs, but let my butt touch that chair cushion and here they come.  All of them.  I've had as many as three at one time in the chair with me.  One behind my head, one in my lap or on the armrest, and one on the ottoman draped over my feet.  There is always a fourth one left to sit on the floor and look up at me, trying to figure out where he can squeeze in too.  I'm not sure I would want to stay home if it weren't for the company of our feline family.  And frankly, I don't trust people who don't have pets.  I don't mean my awful neighbors who keep their two pitbulls on short chains behind their house, I want to kill those people (I'm afraid to complain to the authorities because I worry they would put the dogs down simply because they are pits, but they are friendly pups).  I mean, people who just don't have any kind of affinity for animals- or reptiles- at all.  It's something I don't understand.  I don't think mankind was meant to live separate from the rest of nature.  I'm all for the urban uptown condo bike to the coffee house lifestyle, but there should be at least one fat fluffy cat or yappy terrier in that highrise home.  Even J, when I met him, a big gruff single guy in his 30's managing a warehouse of other men- came home to his sweet kitty every day.  She was all he had, the one who cuddled with him on the couch to watch TV, the one who greeted him at the door after a long rough day.  I can't imagine not having pets, even if it is just a tank full of bright and happy fish.

Is there anything more wonderful in life, than a wagging tail or a soft meow?  I think not.

MISS GEE