Unspoken

I shouldn't be on here today, I don't have time.  J's first art show is in less than 48 hours, and as soon as it is over we are leaving on vacation for a week.  I am overwhelmed right now with getting everything ready, for both.  But I felt as though I had to get on here and defend myself.

I've made it a habit of not getting too political on my social media.  I keep it light and post photos of my cats or the critters in my yard, share vacation photos, post where we've gone out to eat.  I don't want to do anything else on there.  I may have put a few funny memes about the stupidity of Trump on my page, but I don't want to post anything "anti" this or that.  I try very hard not to offend anyone.  I've found that my friends and family are pretty much split up the middle- I have those who share similar feelings to mine, and I have those who believe the complete opposite.  I am cool with that.  I'm not out to hurt anyone, I'm not out to piss off relatives because they are from another political party.  Plus I think too many people are cowardly online, they take potshots at people in their replies and comments, and it disgusts me.  I don't go on FB to be disgusted.  I don't want FB to make me angry.  I have even unjoined a few groups due to comments from others.  Hey, social media is a fucking fake life anyhow, it doesn't bother me to drop the newsfeed from any particular person or group.  It doesn't bother me to get unfriended by someone on there.

I am truly live and let live.  You can support and vote for anyone you want, you can go to any church- or not- that you want.  I don't really care.  I have my beliefs, I live my life the way I intend, and I don't worry about what the neighbors think, and I worry even less about what they are doing.  If everyone minded their own business, the world would be a better place, but that's never going to happen.  The world will always be divided into a million little pieces- it always has been, and it isn't ever going to change. But I accept that.  I will die 20 or 30 years from now with political parties still sniping at each other, with religions still going to war with one another.  In the meantime, I will continue to live my life surrounded by the ones I love, and that's my real world.

If I thought I could totally drop off FB, I would, but my family would rebel because they would no longer "know" what's going on in my life.  I stay on social media to avoid constant phone calls and emails "checking in" on me.  For the most part, I only read a very select few posts from only good friends on FB, the rest of it I scroll through with a glazed look of boredom.  If I "like" a post, then I've read it.  I may not always agree with it, but I agree that my friend has the right to post it.  I like FB least of all.  I prefer Instagram and Pinterest and Etsy, because I can relax and be happy and look at gorgeous photos of art and kitties and beaches, get DIY ideas for my house and yard, and ignore what is mostly garbage anywhere else online.  I can't even stand going to my email, because I have to sift through all the news stories before I can even sign on.  They pop up on the screen so that I can't ignore them.  Depending on where you live, the local stories are just as bad as the global ones.  Where I live, on the outskirts of the big city, the local news is filled with the latest shooting or murder. Truly, there is one- or more- every single night on there.  One evening last week I counted and the first FIVE stories were shootings and killings.

You can become a hermit.  Or you can take it all in and deal with it.  I may sound cold, but for the most part, I am deadened to it all anymore. I think a lot of people are. Evil is so commonplace that we stare it in the eye every day, shrug, and move on with our normal routine.  If I stopped to rage and rail against the gods every time, it would consume me and burn me alive.

But the other day, I let a post get under my skin and offend me.  It wasn't from some random troll or internet crazy.  This was from an actual friend, one from real life, the person I always sit with and talk to before my Friday morning support group.  I've known her for a few years now, she even comes to see me when I have a booth set up at craft fairs, and she's an amazing artist herself.  I don't normally let FB posts goad me, but this one did.  In her post, open to everyone she knew, she stated that if your FB page was "silent" about the Orlando shootings, then she had to assume you didn't care about it.

I tried to understand that she was coming from a place of grief and pain, but I felt the finger pointing at "friends" was unnecessary and quite frankly, it made me mad.  I responded, not in anger, but I couldn't help being defensive.  She wasn't at the meeting last week, and I know I'm going to miss the next two meetings, so we won't have a chance to talk face to face.  I basically told her that it's my personal choice not to post anything political or "newsy"  or "controversial" on FB.  I told her that I discussed my feelings privately about the shootings with my friends and family, and didn't wish to write anything on social media about it.  What I wanted to say was, how dare you assume anything about me based on my silence!  My silence does not convey ANYthing about how I am feeling, and it certainly doesn't condone what happened.  My silence is meaningless, it's not even a factor.  Her response was that we have to "fight" to "protect" our way of life.  I did not reply.

I don't want to fight anyone, I don't want to fight against anything.  I have enough trouble fighting down my own demons.  I can't take on all the ones out there in the world. If I can live my life right and be true to myself, then fuck everyone else out there. Some days I don't think I can even save myself.  I can't and won't take on the burdens of the universe.  I know there are injustices against humanity.  But if you are in the streets rioting against injustice, you are still rioting.  I am not being a bitch.  I am being realistic.  I think standing up for and supporting causes is amazing, and there are wonderful people out there working tirelessly. But I'm not going to waste my time and energy trying to get people to NOT vote for a presidential candidate.

Most of the time our brains are so scattered we can barely decide what to eat for lunch.  Yet we want to tell others what candidate to support, what god to worship, who to marry, what we can and can't have and do in our own homes.  It's all crazy, but there are those out there who truly believe they "know" what's "best" for the rest of us.  Again, it's happening on BOTH sides.  I am not pointing fingers at one particular group.

I would rather spend that time on finding a home for an abandoned puppy, saving the bees, supporting local farmers, feeding my city's homeless, getting better healthcare for poverty stricken children, cleaning up the streets I see every day.  Things I can touch, things that matter in my little circle of being.  Some people would snicker and think that is all lame and unworthy.  "How can you worry about animals in shelters when people are getting gunned down in public?!" they would cry.  I would answer, how can you NOT! How can you not start caring at the most basic level?  I'm not out for publicity, I'm not trying to slay all the giants. If I worry more about a tiny kitten getting euthanized because nobody wants her, then I guess shame on me for not choosing to picket the capitol instead.

I would rather take care of my own environment, because I can't fix Washington. I've watched on FB how my cousin and an uncle are tearing each other apart with their comments because they each support the opposite party.  It's ridiculous. Fuck Trump.  Fuck Hillary.  Neither of them are an actual, integral part of my life. Seriously.  We all know how the government works.  No matter who gets elected president, the opposition will find a way to vote down and stymy anything they want to accomplish.  Presidents are powerless.  Presidents, alone, do not enact laws and create policies.  It's been proven over and over again throughout the decades.  Do people REALLY still believe their vote counts?  Maybe I'm just a cynic.

They are all politicians.  They are NOT leaders.  There is no one running for any office, that I would wish to follow or support.  It's especially not worth my limited energy to bully my friends and family when they "like" the other party.  This world is already spinning too violently with its "us against them" mentality.

I know the shootings have weighed heavily on everyone, and at a time when the country is already so divided and angry and hurt and scared about the future, this just seemed to crush everyone.  Everyone, as always, is quick to rush to judgment and even quicker to condemn.  The shooter, the victims, the government, guns, religion, sexual identity, immigration.  BOTH sides are doing it.  We're all screaming at each other so loudly that NO ONE can be heard at all! People are taking a tragedy and turning it into a political platform, on both sides.  It sickens me.

Some people are too young to remember the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, where 168 people were killed.  I happened to be visiting in the area when it happened, and although I wasn't right there at ground zero, I did go back later to see the aftermath, the memorials, to walk quietly around the chain link fence to stare at the emptiness and devastation.  I stood there, in complete silence, and was engulfed in the agony.  I remember the photos of firemen carrying dying children in their arms.  It was a horrible blight on our country, that one of our own could do this to his fellow Americans, including babies and children.  This wasn't a gay thing.  It wasn't a Muslim thing.  It wasn't a race thing.  It wasn't an immigrant thing.  It wasn't even a gun thing.  But it was still tragic beyond comprehension.  Do I hate or blame or fear young disenfranchised white men for this?  No.

With 9/11, I became one of those people who fell into a black hole, not able to sleep, not able to tear myself away from the 24 hour coverage on the news.  I watched it over and over and over again.  I grew angry at my then-husband because he literally did not care about it.  At the time I hated him for it, for not being there to support me and talk with me about this anguish I was feeling.  Maybe I was being unfair to him.  I've gone to New York and I've seen the beautiful and awesome "Freedom Tower" that now stands on the site. But it doesn't erase the most terrifying vision I saw from the original attack- that of a man in a business suit sailing through the great wide open of nothingness as he made the decision to leap from a thousand feet up rather than burn to death. The news said he would have literally died from fright and shock, long before his body hit the ground, but that didn't make it any easier to watch.  Do I hate or blame or fear Muslims for this?  Absolutely not.

I could go on and on, I could go back into history as far as there are records.  I could remind people about the mass killings and abuse of my own ancestors, the Cherokee people, at the hands of the greedy American government.  By the thousands.  Can you imagine today, the American government herding a certain race of people into camps and slaughtering them for no reason, and having the rest of the country be okay with it?  To even encourage it?  Why?  Because they feared these people who were of a different color, who spoke a different language, who fought back when their lands were invaded.

I can tell stories about the other side of my family, how at the time when my grandfather came over from Sicily, Italians were the most hated group of immigrants and were treated like animals and regarded as dirt.  All because they worked harder and took jobs- for less money- that other "immigrants" (those Europeans who had come over earlier) wouldn't do.  It was said that at the turn of the century, the Italians were the only people who were happy and willing to work side by side with blacks.  So they became hated, as a group, and the prejudice was staggering.  Landlords didn't want to rent to them, businesses didn't want to hire them.  In fact a large percentage of Italian immigrants from that period actually ended up returning to Italy, after saving up money for their families.  And here we are a mere 100 years later- can we imagine Italians being treated that way today?  When now we all flock to Italian restaurants, want to drive Italian sports cars, wear Italian fashion.  And visit Italy.

There will always be hatred and discrimination and fear.  There will always be sides waging battle with each other, to prove their belief is the right one, that their way of life is correct.  Politics, sex, religion, class warfare.  This will never never ever end.  It happens not just in our country, but all over the world.  To say we hate this or that group, is insane.  I am a liberal, always have been and always will be, but I don't blindly follow the party line.  I do have some conservative beliefs.  I don't hate people who think differently. I don't try to force my ideology down anyone's throat.  Every person has their right to an opinion, and we all know the old saying about opinions- they are like assholes, everybody's got one.  Me included.  I'm not making fun, I'm just saying it's utterly pointless to A- try and change someone else's mind, and B- expect everyone to always agree with you.  Never.  Gonna.  Happen.  And our differences should be celebrated, not lambasted.  It's easy to say oh the conservatives do this to the liberals.  But don't we all do it to each other?  It's not just coming from one side, people, wake up.

Evil isn't one particular religion or race.  It's not affiliated with just one political party.  We all feel that we are well-guarded against evil, that we recognize it when we see it.  But it's gonna sneak up on you, sorry.

No one on either side seems to really truly want peace, they want domination.  People want total annihilation of the opposition.  No one is talking about how to live together in harmony. Everyone is talking about how to crush the other side.  We use combative phrases like let's "defeat" the opponent- I don't see anyone saying let's "understand" the opponent, let's "accept" the opponent.  What we all really want is to be heard and respected.  But instead people yell and rant, no one wants to discuss things intelligently.  Especially this election year.  I'm sick of it.  It's destructive, and I don't have room for that in my life. As long as people are different from each other, there will always be fighting and protesting, misunderstandings and suspicions, fear and rage.  It's human nature.  I have a big rule at my house- I refuse to watch, read, or listen to any news early in the mornings or late at night.  I do not want to start my day off or try to drift off to sleep with all this lunacy ringing in my ears.

Unfortunately, and sadly, people will always react and behave badly, and they will lash out to hurt others.  Whether they walk into a crowded club or movie theater with a gun. Or drive a truck loaded with explosives into the garage of a building.  Or fly a plane into a skyscraper.  Or stand at a podium and use their words and persuasion over others to incite more anger and hatred.

There is nothing wrong with being passionate about your beliefs, and getting emotional.  As long as your brain is also engaged along with your heart.  As long as your passions don't swallow you whole and cause you to bring pain to others.

Even if you just get on social media and accuse friends of "not caring" about something.  Let's start thinking before we speak.  Isn't that really what the world is needing?  Forget guns and bombs.  Words can provoke more damage than any weapon.  Words can cause death and pain, words can create a hostile environment where no one feels safe.  Yet words are the easiest thing for us to control.  We all have the ability to do this.

People now make fun of the late Rodney King's speech, "Can we all get along?"  It's an impossibility, but dammit, he was right in wanting it.

MISS GEE

Subbasement

This last week was perhaps one of my lowest in a very long time.

I spent the entire week in the same clothes nonstop.  I went four days without a shower, without brushing my hair or teeth.  Even, holy crap, withOUT coffee because I couldn't find the energy to even make a single cup.  I didn't take J's clothes to the dry cleaners.  I didn't do the laundry.  I didn't take all my medications.  I let dirty dishes and towels and mail pile up everywhere.  I didn't clean the cat litter boxes.  Because J was due home Friday at lunch, I set my alarm for 5am on Friday and forced myself to get up and clean the house like a frantic wild woman, so he could be duped into thinking it had looked that way all week.  I even scrubbed the shower, for which he hugged and kissed and thanked me, because I haven't cleaned it since, well, I can't remember when.  Then I had to take a nap, I was mentally and physically exhausted solely from vacuuming.  I just hate this feeling.  It makes me feel less than human, it makes me feel like the poorest excuse for a wife.

The saddest part is that I didn't even try to do anything that was good for me this week.  I didn't go to the grocery store, but instead ate stale bread and old crackers, because it was effortless.  I cancelled my regular physical therapy session.  I skipped my weekly support group meeting.  Hell, I didn't even READ all week.  I sent a long rambling email to my best friend, begging off talking to her for awhile.  I sent a text to my dad asking that neither he nor my mother call me for a few days, because I wasn't feeling well.  My sister had surgery this week and I didn't even reach out to her.  That's a pretty shitty week when you actively tell the closest people in your circle, people who love you and care about you, to just please leave you alone because you feel like utter crap.  I tried to sound chipper on Facebook, but most of my posts came while I was huddled miserably on the couch or stuck in the bed because I couldn't make myself get the fuck up.  I literally was an unmoving, uncaring lump all week.

When J got home on Friday, I was my regular phony-baloney self.  Fixed up, dressed, ready to live a normal life.  Sometimes I think he sees right through me. Yesterday he asked me if I was still feeling depressed.  I said, oh I'm okay, just tired.  We really only had Friday evening and Saturday together, but I forced my best smiles and laughter for him.  Now it's another six days without him.  This current Sunday through Friday schedule ends this week, and then he'll have four days off at home before he starts his next assignment.  This morning I asked him if he could stand four days at home with me. Without words he simply gave me a big squeeze and held on tight for a long time, his face buried against my neck.  Was he happy at the thought of time together, or just trying to compel me to stop bashing myself?

So which is the real me, my true self?  The scraggly-haired dirty person who shuffles through the house, or the woman who gets dolled up to spend time out in the world with her husband?  My happiness does not depend on J, I realize that.  And I don't blame my depression on his being gone.  It started long before he began traveling full time for work.  And it continues on weekends when he's back home.  It's just that when I'm home alone, I don't have to fight it as much, I have no one to put on a show for.  And I don't care enough about myself to do anything about it.  But because J loves me, I try so very hard for him.

I vowed I was going to have a better week, because I deserve it.  I deserve to be good and kind and loving to myself.  As soon as J left this Sunday morning to head off for the week, I showered, fixed myself a lunch, started a load of laundry, and I even put shoes on- glory be.  I am determined not to have another wasted screwed up week, to find a purpose and DO something, even if it's take a bag of clothes to Goodwill.  I don't care.  DO anything.  Any god damn little thing for myself.  Sometimes just getting started in the morning is enough momentum to carry me through the day, the week.

We were supposed to have a yard sale this coming weekend, but I begged J to postpone it a few weeks.  After he capitulated to that, I then begged him even harder to postpone it until the fall.  I just don't have the energy for it right now.  We had a yard sale in April, and the unsold items are literally piled up on my dining room table and all over the garage, in limbo because we intended to have a second sale so soon after.  But I can't stand seeing it all over the place, the unwanted clutter is like an old brick wall, crumbling, untended, constantly threatening to topple over and bury me in debris.  I just can't look at it anymore. The old picture frames, coffee mugs, books, paintings, knickknacks, clothes. All the things we've decided we no longer want. By getting J to agree to pushing the sale off another season, I promised myself I was hauling it all down to a corner in the basement, where I can continue adding to it and pricing things, but not in a place where I have to trip over it all.

It takes a lot out of me these days to go up and down the stairs, but even if I make one trip down and have to rest for 30 minutes before I go down again, I have GOT to get all this shit out of the way.  It's enough that I have boxes sitting around of stuff to keep and take to the new house.  It's enough that I have boxes sitting around of all my pottery and jewelry for the craft shows.  It's enough that I have boxes sitting around filled with vintage items for our Etsy shop and antique shows.  Now I have boxes sitting around filled with J's artwork for his new Etsy shop.  I feel as though my home and my life are in limbo, contained in plastic tubs, scattered all throughout the house.  I keep stumbling over everything every day.

J left me with quite a daunting bit of work to do this week, because he's working a craft show in a few weeks.  Unless I apply myself every day, as much as I possibly can, I'm not going to accomplish it all.  I am tired of disappointing my husband, who works so hard to give me everything, who allows me to stay at home, who encourages me to find my peace and pursue my happiness.  The very least I can do is get all his signs sanded down and painted, so he can come home on Friday and see me as his helpmate, instead of the albatross around his neck.  He's always there with me when I work a show, and I want to repay him and give him his shot at success.  Anything we do, we always do it together, and it takes teamwork for any of our endeavors to become triumphs.

But I've first got to get my head above the water, before I can ever hope to make it out alive to crawl onto shore.

I read an interesting article in the paper today, where someone was asked if they were happy. They said, "You're always stronger if you try to find a positive in something.  Because a day is going to come when I'm going to get a phone call...telling me something genuinely bad, and it's going to floor me...And every day that that doesn't happen is a brilliant gift."

My life doesn't suck, I've got to start embracing that realization.

MISS GEE

Finding The Words

This past weekend we went up to the new house for a few hours.  J is still on his schedule of coming home on Friday and leaving again Sunday.  He expects it to be this way at least through the end of June.  I won't say this hasn't been getting to me, he's barely home and then he's off again.  He's talked about asking for the week of July 4th off, but hasn't put in for it yet.  Even if he takes it off, we won't be taking a vacation.  We'll use the time to make several trips up to the house. But we will be together.  Each time we go to the house, we load the truck up with our stuff.  At this point, we are just dropping things off- pottery, baskets, books, items that are easily boxed up but things we can live "without" here for awhile.  It's going to be this way for the next year or so.  But it's also pretty cool because now I walk into that house and hey, there's my stuff.  This IS my new house, soon to be home.

This Saturday we took the first of the furniture up.  We took the guest bedroom set, so we will have a place to sleep now.  We usually get a hotel room when we go visit his family.  We left the old mattress here and bought a new one up there.  I've got my old bedroom set down in our basement, and we'll move that upstairs now for my parents when they come to visit.  They will be here for the Memorial holiday.  I told J the other day, I resent the fact that I have to give up an entire room in the house for "guests" because, let's face it, no one comes here except my parents, and that's only 2-3 times a year at the most.  Here, with four bedrooms, it's been okay.  Going to three bedrooms at the new house, I almost wish I didn't have to have a guest room.  I swear I would rather just let my parents stay in our room and we can use an air mattress when they visit.  But I suppose having a guest room is the "proper" thing to do.  I just really harbor a grudge about it, and I admit that makes me feel like a selfish heel.  It's a room in our house that WE basically can't use, and we have to give up that space so it can be used by someone else three weeks out of the year.  Ggrrr.

Earlier last week I sent J a long rambling email, apologizing for my irritable behavior lately.  Sometimes it's better for me to communicate serious subjects that way. It's not that I can't talk openly or easily to J, it's just that when I email I can take my time to compose what I want to say in the right words.  I tried to explain to him about this latest bout of depression I've been having.  This one has gone on nonstop for about a month now, and I can't shake it off.  It's been a bad spell and I don't see an end in sight, and the body pain that comes along with it seems to be settling deeper into my bones every day.  Of course as a man, my husband wants to "fix" things and I tried to assure him this isn't something he can fix.  He took me to lunch on Friday, at my favorite pizza place downtown on the square- a place he hates and never wants to go to.  So there he was right away, trying to make me happy.  He wanted to talk about it.

I had great trouble trying to put it into words for him.  He was looking for tangibles, concrete evidence of how I was feeling and why I was feeling that way and mainly, what was causing it.  I told him it wasn't a "thing", it was just a heavy feeling inside my chest that overwhelms me with sadness, making me feel lost, robbing me of any normal happiness.  I don't think I made him understand, he seemed to get frustrated.  As usual, his response was for me to see my doctor or find a therapist.  If I can't find the right words for the person I love the most in this world, how can I do it with a stranger?  I don't discount therapy, I just don't think it's right for me.  J said, well there is medication for it, and I said I won't go that route.  I take SO many pills right now for physical ailments, I can't add more prescriptions to my regimen, I just can't.  I know how it goes. It's a slippery slope of playing with dosages and labels, I've watched it happen to friends and family before.  If I had someone here with me to monitor me, I might consider it.  But the fact that I'm home utterly alone for the week, scares me.

It's not that J can't understand or sympathize.  J gets paid a lot of money at work to identify problems and correct them, it's what he does best.  So it's hard for me to explain to him about these gloomy feelings that come into my soul, unbidden and unwelcome.  J is looking for a hard edge to grasp in his hands, he doesn't understand my confusion, he doesn't accept it when my answers are "I don't know" when he asks what is wrong.  For J, every situation has a solution. It's difficult for me to break it down like that.  I don't see my life as a situation. I see it as a long tumultuous road of ups and downs, nightfall and daybreak, warm springs and sharply cold winters.  J is always by my side, always supporting me, but this path is mine to walk alone.

J believes my depression has a root cause that he can reach out and fine tune, he's looking for a knob to dial down the static in my head and instead play a happy song for my heart.  He worries that it's because he's gone all of the time with his job, he thinks it's because I don't have close friends here or because I gave up my job and I need a purpose now, he wants to know if this move is causing me undo stress and suggests I slow down, he asks if I'm just still sad about our kitty who recently died.  Sure, it's all of it and none of it, I know.  He doesn't want to believe there is something wrong with me on the inside.  He wants to blame my depression on some external force, some monster hiding in the closet that he can heroically chase away.

So I try to smile, hoping HE will start to feel better about all of this, and stop worrying.  I don't want to bring my husband down.  I don't want to be a burden.  He says he worries about me constantly while he's gone. What wife wants that?  He hugs me and says he wants me to be happy, to take better care of myself.  He wants me to eat better, take vitamins, go for walks, call my mom, soak in the fresh air and sunshine, take a fun class, go back to yoga, ask friends out to lunch, start a new painting.  I want to tell him, if I thought any of those things would cure me, I would do them.  But I just smile, again, and say it's okay, I'll be fine. Neither of us ever believes it, but we pretend, and we go on.

I know the darkness will lift eventually, it always does, and then I have long periods of contentment.  It's just hard to be in the middle of one of my spells. We've got a lot going on right now, we've got company coming, we've got a couple of shows on the calendar, we've got this bright new future of ours to work on together.  And I'm grateful for all that J does, for all that he is.  When I'm weak he is strong, when I'm anxious he is calming, when I'm overly emotional he is logical.  He's the only one in my life that is there to tell me everything will be okay.  I know my heartaches have nothing whatsoever to do with what's actually going on in my life.  But it's tough lately to push through it and keep moving forward.

MISS GEE

Use A Pencil Please

One of the things I like least about having a husband who travels full time for work, is the loss of our old routines.  There weren't many, so giving them up created a much more obvious and gaping hole in my life.  Nothing is certain with us any more, even our weekends, because work can pluck J out of my date book with one text message.  I've had to cross lines through many a written down plan this last year.  We've given away concert tickets, we've lost nonrefundable craft show fees, we've rearranged reservations.  We've celebrated anniversaries or birthdays "not" on the actual days, but whenever he can be home.

And this isn't going to change, not as long as he keeps to his current position.  From the discussions we've had lately, this will probably be the job he'll stay in until he retires, as long as the company will have him.  So routines are gone, plans are pencilled in with question marks instead of inked with confidence.

Maybe I'm whining because he didn't get to come home the last weekend.  The warehouse he's been working at lately went on strike, so panic ensued and he had to remain in place to man the helm.  I had to work a planned craft show by myself, a miserable experience.  I had a few acquaintances say they would have set up with me, but alas they already had their own plans.  Yes, I did too- my plans were to work the show with my hubby!  This isn't the first time J has not come home on the weekend.  There have been a few other times when warehouses either went on strike or threatened it, which is just as bad because then everyone sits there hovering on their chairs, waiting.

And this definitely won't be the last time either.  Although most of the divisions in the company aren't unionized, he is after all a troubleshooter, and the union warehouses seem to have the most trouble.  So this is something that I will just have to shrug off, and learn to roll with.  They wanted him to stay through again this weekend, but he said no I won't be gone three weeks.  And although he came home Friday, here it is Sunday morning and he is already long gone, back to a gloomy soggy North.  But I remind myself that this job is the reason why we have a wonderful life and have this amazing future to look forward to together.

Most of the routines I'm talking about are just the simple daily ones, nothing profound, nothing world-changing.  I'm talking about having dinner together in the summer while watching baseball on TV every night.  Picking up a Redbox movie (yes, really) after our Friday date night dinner out. Shooting basketball in the driveway after work.  Morning coffee and reading the paper before he shuffled out the door to the office.  Things I can certainly continue to do by myself now, but they sort of lose meaning.  I still eat dinner of course, just at 5:30 instead of 8:30, when he would get home from work.  After 30 years of getting up at 5am to go to work, my body still wakes up early on its own every day, so I'm still up before the sun making coffee and catching up with the world news.  Just by myself now.  And even if I wanted to sleep in, the cats don't allow me that luxury.

But I am dealing with it, as we approach the One Year mark of his travels.  I am making my own new routines every day.  I might love to dabble with art and be creative, but I also like schedules for myself.  I like to know that my day has a beginning and an end.  Maybe that's the former accountant in me, I don't know, wanting to tick off all the boxes.  As I mentioned before, change is hard for me, even the smallest, most insignificant ripples in my day.  But change is part of life, and I'm finding lately that the best way to deal with change is not just allow it to happen unchecked, but to meet it and challenge it with my own expectations.  If this is being taken away from me, then I will do that instead.  You can't always control things, but I can control my reactions to them.  I talked about that enough in my last post.

No matter what happens I just want to be able to, at the end of the day, at the end of my life, look back and say yep, it all came out alright and I did okay.

MISS GEE

Fear of Falling

I have had control issues from a young age.  I am that person who always has the last word, who always has to be right, who always wants things done my way. I've always been like that, and I know it's deeply ingrained in my soul.  My mother is the same way, and so is my sister.  When I was in high school, I never drank and still don't.  I used to say it was because I didn't like the taste of alcohol, but I think it was my fear of losing control.  I would go to parties on Friday nights, sit around and watch my friends become idiots, and on Monday mornings back at school I would be the one telling them how dreadfully stupid they behaved because they couldn't remember.  I didn't want to be like them.

It's been a recurring theme in all my relationships- with people, with work, with strangers, with road rage.  It's one of the reasons I make tedious to-do lists even when I'm home alone all day.  It's why I make elaborate "itineraries" when we go on vacation.  It's why I spend an hour on MapQuest before I drive anywhere new (I can't even let myself trust a GPS). It's a character trait/flaw I've long wanted to change, but I have a tremendous problem dealing with it.  It makes others around me unhappy, and in the end, it stresses me out more than I need to be.  I made a promise to myself over the weekend that going forward, I was going to actively work on this.

J and I had a bit of a tiff over the weekend, on the way home from buying the new house.  We rarely fight, and I wouldn't even call this an argument, but we spent a few hours in stony silence afterwards which is horribly unlike us.  All because J said he wanted to buy a particular piece of furniture for the new house, and I immediately shot down his idea because I didn't think we needed it.  And I do that all the time.  I know it, but I can't help myself, the words come spewing out of my mouth before my brain engages.  Most of the time I wish I could suck them back in, but that's never possible is it?  Once we were speaking again, J said he is so tired of me being that way.  J rarely speaks negatively towards me, and for him to do so, I know he truly is upset with me.  And if my easy-going husband is upset, then this is something I need to work on.

I know part of it is the control.  But part of it is also how badly I deal with change.  Any change.  Every year my company had the same boring questions and categories on our annual reviews.  No matter what department, no matter what job, no matter what boss- when it came to the question about how does this employee deal with change, I got terrible marks.  It was always always the one category I failed, every time.  And if people I worked with saw it, how bad was I behaving with the people I lived with?  Because I did it with my ex as well.  It was a different situation with him- because of the abuse and disrespect and mutual hatred, I always thought I had to "fight" for what I wanted, that I always had to be ready to defend myself and my way of thinking.  In that relationship, we were always combative. It was dog eat dog, and if I didn't speak up first or speak the loudest, I got trampled.  If I didn't get it my way, then I was crushed under the weight of W's decisions.  

W was selfish and angry, his choices were meant to hurt, to demean, to dominate.  J is not like that, he always bends over backwards to please me.  He is willing and happy to make compromises for me.  Why can't I do the same for him?  Why can't I loosen my grip on the rope?  It's not as though he will take it all and use it as a noose on me.  Right now I seem to always be in a tug of war against him, but he doesn't want to play.

If we planned to go to lunch before we go to the garden center, but J decides to go to the garden center first, I instantly start listing the reasons why I think we should go to lunch first.  And I do that ALL THE TIME.  With everything.  No matter how small or insignificant the issues.  It's like I never allow the man to make decisions.  For me, it's a (bad) reaction to a change. To J, it's me telling him he's wrong and proceeding to point out the reasons why.  If he has an idea about how to do something, I almost always find a way to "correct" him, and come up with my own version of how we should continue.  I usually end up sounding like a smarty pants, and even I see that.  Why do I assume he doesn't know how to use a certain tool, pick a restaurant, buy his own clothes?  Do I try to control all the decisions in order to feel needed, to feel necessary in his life?  If so, that's going to backfire eventually.  No man wants to constantly feel like a child, married to his mother.

I don't want to do that to him, and I don't want to make him feel bad or belittle him or make him, as he said he does so often during these conversations, just give up and "let" me have my way because he is worn down and it's easier just to give in.  "Yes dear."  Back when we were dating, I half-jokingly told J I was high maintenance, that I was raised a princess and a daddy's girl and was used to being spoiled.  And J has always treated me the same way.  It's one thing to be spoiled and showered because the giver is freely doing it, entirely with an open heart.  It's another thing to get your way because you have demanded it and browbeaten your spouse.  There is a fine line between being a princess and being a spoiled brat.  I don't want to be that way, but sometimes I think I am.  I am worried that J will become resentful eventually.

J told me this weekend that it is tiring and it is easier to let me get my way than to argue with me.  That makes me sound like a bitch.  I know he wasn't calling me a bitch, it just makes ME see myself that way.  I know J meant to open a meaningful dialogue with me, but I snapped at him about how I won't be a doormat, I have opinions, I won't keep my mouth shut.  I realized with a painful stab to my heart, that in my mind I was arguing with my ex-husband.  It was like I didn't even see J standing there in front of me.  Why can't I get that awful fucking waste of a human out of my head after all these years!

I tried to explain it to J- that when I say "no we can't do that!" I sometimes mean "that idea scares me" but I don't know how to say it the right way.  I don't know if he understands or not.  J just sees it as me being negative.  He said he deals with that all the time at work, his ideas are always met with resistance and negativity. People will say "we can't do that" or "we've always done it this way we don't want to make changes"- and he said he really doesn't want to hear more of it at home.  I tried to let him know that- whether or not he thinks it's a big deal- things scare me sometimes, but of course he doesn't understand that either because he is my protector and my support and my white knight.  He is always telling me not to worry, not to get upset, everything will turn out okay, he will take care of it.  And it almost always does work out fine.  But it's a nasty symptom of my anxiety, to be fearful of any change, and so I try to defend myself with the word NO.  And that's fucked up.  Even if our Saturday routine gets shuffled in the middle of the day.  Even if J wants to buy a fireproof safe to put in the storage room of the new house.  I always react, and normally I react and overreact badly.

J sees it as me battling against him, and that's the last thing I want to do.  We always say we are a team.  It's one of his catchphrases for whenever we have a bump in the road.  We're a team!  We're in this together.  I should chant that to myself before I open my mouth, to remind myself that I am not his mom, I am not that naggy henpecking type of wife, I'm not his boss.  J has a tendency to ask for my opinion, a lot.  Most of the time it's on innocuous subjects like matching a shirt with dress pants, or will I read an email he's writing and let him know if it sounds okay, or what should we buy his mom for Mother's Day.  And of course, sometimes he makes these same decisions without me and I am fine with that.  But I am also sometimes quick to tell him the green shirt doesn't go with the gray pants, or his mother doesn't wear the necklace we got her last year so why buy her another one this year.  I have a tough time drawing the line on what is constructive criticism and support, and what is just plain damn control and nitpicking.

For months now he's been asking my thoughts about buying a particular kind of car.  Well it's a car I absolutely can't stand, I think they are ugly, and I don't think they are a car for a manly man to drive.  So every time he brings it up, I am utterly and completely negative about it.  I say ridiculous things like, well that's a girl car, anything to talk him out of it because I don't like the car.  But then I will say, like a snot, well it will be your car, you do whatever you want.  Of course at that point, I've spent ten minutes ranting about how much I would hate it and I wouldn't want to ride in it.  The damage is done, my point was made, he has been beaten down.  WHY WHY WHY!  It's a fucking car, and more than that, it's HIS fucking car.  He works hard, we have the money, why am I being such a petulant child about it?  What does it matter?!?! 

WHY AM I THIS WAY?

I have GOT to stop this.  My husband wants a certain car, and he deserves it, no matter what I may think about it.  I am scared about getting rid of our current vehicle, the fun and fast convertible we've had since we were dating.  But it's a car, I've attached all sorts of crazy sentimental emotions to it.  J has wanted to sell it for five years now, and I keep saying NO.  Why?  The fear of change?  The fact that I think I have to control every decision we make?  I don't know.

That's just one small example, it's the one facing us currently.  People sell cars and buy new cars every minute of the day.  Hell, I got a new car last year.  If it was MY idea to sell the old sports car and get a new one, it would be cool, and J wouldn't care.  But it's like it's because it was his idea, that I can't let it go, I can't process it and be fine with it.  My husband is an amazing man, with sound judgment, outstanding morals, intelligence.  Wouldn't it be so much easier on my anxiety, so freeing for me to just let him make the decisions and be okay with them?  He won't steer me wrong, he won't let me fall, his decisions are for "us" and what's best and he will take care of me.  J always makes certain my needs are met, no matter what he has to do.  Why can't I shake off the anxiety, the tightness, and give him the the respect and freedom he deserves?  I've got got got got got to work on this.

I've got to work on this right now, because with this move to the new house, we have a million billion decisions to make.  I cannot allow myself to control every single one.  I won't.  J works very very hard, he's made a lot of sacrifices, to take this traveling job.  His personal comfort, never being at home, missing us and me missing him too.  But it was a great opportunity and now it's allowing us to make this move to the new house.  I need to remind myself of that whenever he wants to do something, or buy something, or go somewhere- even if I don't want to or don't agree.  THAT is compromise, that is a true partnership.  One person caving all the time is not.  Eventually that person is going to be so far deep down in a hole, they will tunnel their way out and move on to a better place where they can live their own life the way they want to.  I don't want to lose my husband over decisions about paint colors or lighting fixtures. It's not worth it!  I have an amazingly patient husband, but even so, there are limits for everyone I believe.

Arg, it's frustrating and sad to know I am like this.  Why am I still making him drive a car we bought in 2004, just because I am overly fond of the memories we've had in it over the years.  It's a broken down money pit we hardly ever drive anymore.  The wonderful memories will always be there. LET. IT. GO.  Let J plan where we go to eat lunch on Saturday, and when.  Let him hang the silly sports posters in his office if he wants to.  Let him wear those crazy bright blue tennis shoes he picked out and bought without me last week. Let him decide how to design the new signs he is making.  It's like I can't even sit back and allow him that, I have to have my finger in every tiny pot, stirring.

Let it go and let my husband be happy with making a decision and let ME be happy letting him do it!  Why is my little world so complicated?  Why am I MAKING it complicated, more than it ever needs to be?  Me and my anxiety and my stupid control issues.  I need help.

MISS GEE

Change Your Brain

I had to start this post over again, wiping out a few paragraphs filled with negativity.  All I wanted to say was how very excited I am about having a greenhouse at the new home up in the mountains, and I went off on a tangent about how much I hate our current neighbors and how miserable they make me and how I can't wait to get away from them.

I don't know why my mind automatically goes to the negative, to the anger, to the unhappiness.  I see potential problems where others see unlimited possibilities.  I hear a suggestion and my mind shuts it down, while other people are always open to new ideas and embracing change.  I want to cast off my old way of thinking, this Debbie Downer, this Negative Nelly in me.  I want to learn to say and think "I can" and "I will" instead of "I can't" or "I won't", and not just say it but believe it!  I want to stop hating, to stop staying in this continual mode of always being pissed off at the world.  I am only holding myself back from life, by seeing the darkness and never the light.

What I wanted to say in this post, is how very much I am looking forward to the opportunity to grow my own fresh vegetables and herbs, to cook healthier, to experiment with new recipes.  Instead I looked out the window here and went on a crazy rant about how we don't spend any time outside at our current house because of the people who live next to us.  Why did I have to go there?  I just deleted it all.  Focus on the future, focus on the excitement, focus on the dreams and the plans and the possibilities.  Stop worrying about what others do and say, stop letting my head get crammed with all the things that bother me and instead fill it up with the simple satisfaction of living a good life, and being blessed with good fortunes.

I know that a large part of my depression, is how my brain processes the normal ups and downs of every day life.  People always remark to me that I am always happy, but that's just the forced smile I show them all, the pretend laughter.  I rarely feel happiness inside.  J is the only one who knows it, who senses it.  He will ask me "why are you never happy?" and I don't know how to answer him.  If I knew the answer, I would give anything to put a plan into action and change the way my mind thinks!  My one good friend here is studying a very specific branch of psychology and she's been having practice sessions with friends who volunteer.  After talks with me, she said I'm complicated and she needs more training before she can help me.  I could have told her that!

I know all the inspirational stories on the news, blah blah, about people overcoming odds and fighting for survival and never giving up hope.  My thoughts always go straight down the crapper from the outset.  Why can't I learn to be grateful and accepting and bare, instead of hunching inwards and closing myself up?  Why does my mind think of a post about flowers, and suddenly it becomes a tirade, a toxic monologue about other people?

What makes one person lean towards the negative, and another person always seems to have a sunny disposition?  Brain chemistry?  Environment?  I had the perfect, fun, happy childhood but I'm always grumpy and gloomy.  J spent his young years working hard and having a tougher go of things, but he is the most positive person I know.  I am SO tired of always being so upset and unhappy and down.  The negativity is powerful, it is poisonous.  It holds me back from doing the things I really want to do, it keeps me stuck in a bad place in my head.  I want to actually be- in real life- that productive, animated, chipper person I always portray on social media.

I want to feel real hope and optimism and sunshine on my face.  I don't know if this is an inherited trait, or if I can retrain my brain to learn to think this way.  J is like that.  Oh, not smugly happy, but he always sees the finest in people, in situations, he always has positive ideas, he always expects the best outcome.  My mind immediately goes to what could go wrong and how hard it will be and what if it doesn't work out?  Why can't I just smile and say YES and think oh how wonderful, and really really mean it!

But anyhow, back to my original post idea, I AM supremely excited to have this little workshop and greenhouse on our new property.  Well, it will be ours at the end of this week when we close.  I can't wait to plant tomatoes and peppers, rosemary and cilantro, marigolds and lavender and whatever else I can stick in a pot.  I look forward to making fresh salsa and drying herbs for my stews and sauces.  I am counting the days until we can relax on the front porch with coffee, or spend an evening on the back deck watching the birds and roasting marshmallows over a fire. And I want chickens! Okay, I'm getting ahead of myself, but I'm trying for that optimism and joy!

MISS GEE

Freeze Frame

So plans change at a whim, as they usually do.  This weekend we were supposed to go see the new house again, walk through it, take photos, measurements, yadda yadda.  But J had to stay out of town for work over the weekend, because of some issues with a potential strike of union employees.  And when the corporate office says you can't come home, you can't come home. But the good news is, he will be home Tuesday and off the rest of the week.  Yay!  So, it's a give and get situation, and considering that means he will be home for three entire days to HELP me with the big blow out yard sale on Saturday, well, I will take it.  I think it's been harder on him though, he's been calling and texting me constantly, and it was snowing yesterday there, but I think he's just more bored than he is blue.

My Friday was normal-  my weekly support group meeting at 7:30am, errands.  But once I got home, I knew I was done.  It has been a glorious weekend, sunny, cold, clear skies, joyful birds, blooming flowers.  Those days when everything is super bright azure and deep green. I just didn't want to go back out into the world.  And quite frankly, I don't want to be out in my yard either with my horrible foul neighbors always outside prowling around.  So I spent the weekend alone in the house.  Not happy but not sad, just eh.  That's me lately, eh.  If you can still be alive and have a flat line on the machine, that would describe how I feel anymore.

For some reason I decided to start sorting through all the old photos.  I think I mentioned it in my last post.  And I really do have other things I need to be doing, but once I get an idea stuck in my head, I sort of do it and damn the consequences.  So right now I have a dining table covered in photo albums and boxes.  I spent hours going through it all yesterday and barely made a dent.  Most of the photos are old, because once I got a digital camera, I stopped printing out photos.  These boxes are filled with prints from my old 35mm camera, and what's worse is back then- if you are old enough to remember- you always got a free second set of photos!  Not only am I sorting photos, but all the duplicates as well.

Because they are old, it's been really hard for me to go through them.  But it's because they are old, I am not carrying them with me into the new house.  Since we moved into this house, these photos have been down in our basement.  When we move into the new house, with our limited space, well, I've got to cut the number down drastically.

It's easy to say that the photos of the ex have to get dumped.  At first I thought I might struggle with tossing them, not because I still have feelings for him, but just because of my hoarding issues.  The way I attach sentimental value to things.  I've talked about how for me, tossing old cards and letters fills me with tremendous guilt, because I feel like I'm trashing my past.  I was really worried I would feel that way when I started throwing away the old photos too.  I had this insane idea of boxing up the photos of him, and the next time I went out of town (so the postage wouldn't reflect my current location) I would mail them to him.  I don't know where he lives, but he has a business and that address is online.  I don't know why I even considered that he would want the photos, or even care, and more than that I was afraid it would open up a can of worms.  Some things are just better off left dead and buried.

The first time I went to Vegas was with W, but J and I have been out there many times, and I have those photos and memories.  I have beautiful photos of New Orleans from when W and I visited it, but you know, J and I have been there too and those photos are MUCH more important to me.  And I don't exactly want to sit around and reminisce about my days with W.  When I think about the trips with W, I think about the fighting and screaming and long silences and hurtful words that always always always punctuated everything we did, even vacations.  Photos from those years remind me of all the pain.  Why would any sane person want to cling to those reminders?  It's amazing how much a tiny slip of color paper can wring emotions from the deepest part of your brain.

Once I started the process, I found all the old anger and hatred and fear and hopelessness welling up inside of me, all feelings he stirred in me during our 13 years together.  I did not feel any "good" feelings when I looked at him.  I kept thinking, what a waste of a human being.  He was handsome, he was smart, he was once ambitious and could have done great things.  The man interviewed at freakin' NASA!  But he let drugs and partying pave the way for laziness and apathy, and he disintegrated in front of my very eyes into a worthless piece of shit who hated women, tormented me, and wasted his potential.  I thought about the years of my life that could have-should have been happy, but how I spent them instead cowering into this little pathetic shell of the person I had once been. At the end of our relationship, I had changed as much as he did, and neither of us for the better.  He destroyed both of us.  So it became extremely easy to toss the glossy images of his shaggy curls and blue eyes and easy grin away into the garbage.  He did the same to me when we were married.

There were a lot of photos that made me sad.  Photos of my old dog, of my cat who recently died- both from cancer.  But happy photos too. Photos of old friends, family photos from childhood, baby photos of my now-grown nephews.  Pictures from high school marching band, from Disney, from the beach, from concerts. Those are the ones that will be harder to sift through.  Even though they evoke pleasant memories and warm feelings, and I laugh and smile when I look at them, realistically how often am I going to sit and look at these?  Honestly this is probably the first time in ten or more years I've gone through them.  It made me think back to a few years ago, when J's grandmother passed away at 94.  She was still living in her home, so she had never needed to let go of any of her possessions.  After she was gone, I can remember sitting with J's mother and aunt on the living room floor, sorting through hundreds of old photos.  And while I'm sure they meant the world to granny, none of us recognized a single blurry face looking back from the black and white squares.  They all went into the trash.  When I'm gone, my remaining photos will end up in the same place I'm sure, because whoever takes on the daunting task of cleaning up my belongings will have the same blank stare on their face when they look through my albums.

My goal for right now is JUST to get rid of the ones with W in them, or from trips he and I took together, or just any of the ones from my life with him.  The exception being any photo with the dog in it.  I do have hundreds of photos of just the dog.  But at least that many more of him with W in the frame as well.  I thought about sitting and cutting W out of the picture, but then what will I do with a stack of half-cropped photos.  At what point do I say, I have eight hundred pictures of the dog, I can't keep them all.  And then I know I will have to go through them again, and then again, until I have a manageable number of treasured portraits of loved ones and pets.

But that's what downsizing is all about, getting rid of the excess, the burden, the cumbersome possessions.  And I'm glad that we are making the choice now to downsize ourselves, so that we can do it on our own terms, at our own pace.  Instead of doing it twenty years from now because we are too sick or frail to stay in our home, and we have two days to decide what to keep and what to discard before we get carted off to a studio apartment at the assisted living home.  I don't think anyone can argue that being in control of your own destiny feels pretty fucking awesome.  So hang onto it as long as you can, because like I said, plans change at a whim.

MISS GEE

Full Calendar

I shouldn't be blogging today, I have a MAJOR to-do list, but right now I can't face it, I just need a small break.  Plus I am extremely and deeply sad today, that a longtime family friend has passed away very suddenly, and I can't shake that heartache.

It's very disappointing to have had a few happy and excited posts, and to go straight to feeling hopeless and dismal again.  The thought of the new house wasn't enough to sustain me.  True, I do get excited talking about the house with J, and making plans, and talking about the future and what we want to do before, during, and after the move.  And although in about a month the house will (hopefully) be officially ours, we're still sticking to the idea of taking 1-2 years before we move there permanently.  In the meantime, LOTS to do.  The only relief I have, as far as my anxiety, is that we ARE taking so long to pack up here and move.  And J will be there with me.  The first yard sale is in just two weeks, and we've decided we aren't going to try to sell everything on one Saturday.  Which I am 100% perfectly okay with, because it's not possible.  People will think it's a "haul away" day from an episode of "Hoarders" if I tried to put out all the crap on one afternoon.

Last week my body was rocking and rolling, but my mind was not in sync. I floundered and stumbled, a lot. This week my brain is racing with ideas and thoughts, but my body doesn't want to cooperate.  I can't seem to EVER get the two to coordinate with each other.  So for this week, mostly what I've done is keep a notebook and pen at the ready, writing down my intentions and plans and schedule.  I can't seem to do much more than that.  We had a big antique/craft show recently where we set up a large booth, and this last weekend I had my first craft show for 2016, and I spent so much time and energy getting ready for them, I guess this week my body wants to crash.  So the most exciting thing I will do this week is watch all my Harry Potter DVD's and veg out. With working the show this weekend, I spent two days on Vicodin with all the terrible pains associated with putting up a tent, tables, unloading boxes, standing on my feet all day, etc.  I love the shows, but my body hates me for it afterward.

So the big gigantic neighborhood yard sale is in two weeks.  Then at the end of April we've signed up for another antique/craft show.  We've got one in the middle of May, and another one at the beginning of June, another one in July.  And in between, our other weekends are already full.  This weekend it's driving up to see the new house and make another walk-through.  Then drive back up for the closing two weeks later.  Then back up there again for Mother's Day for his family.  Then Memorial Day weekend my parents will be here for several days, and we promised we would take them up to see the house (plus we are thinking about another yard sale that weekend too).  We have a big out of town concert this month.  J has a huge work function to go to one Saturday in May. We have a vacation planned.  So, my calendar is completely booked up through somewhere into the middle of JULY already!!!  And between weekends my days are busy with my normal errands, housework, making jewelry, running Etsy shops, eBay orders, packing up what we sell, digging through the clutter in the basement.  For someone who doesn't have a real "job" anymore, I barely have time to catch my breath some days.  And if you read my blog, then you know I don't really have the physical stamina or the mental energy to carry on like that.

I am working on pricing items for the yard sale in two weeks.  I'm sorry, maybe it's just the OCD in me, but I've GOT to have a price tag on every little thing, even if it's only 25 cents.  J is the type, just throw it on a table and when someone asks, quote them a price.  I can't do it that way.  I don't want to be put on the spot and have to make hundreds of snap decisions like that on a Saturday afternoon.  Plus, whenever I go to shows or flea markets, I'm usually too shy to ask about prices if an item isn't marked.  And I always pay full price, I'm again too shy to dicker.  J will say, hey I'll give you five bucks for that, for something marked $20- he's not too proud to look for a bargain!  So my house is a disaster, I've got yard sale stuff spread out all over the dining room table, all over the basement, all over the garage.  The guest bedroom is covered with all the Etsy and eBay items.  In my craft room my two work tables are completely covered with new necklaces I'm working on. Trying to keep it all organized but trying to work on every bit of it as much as I can.  We just have so much SHIT.  I try to put it into perspective- the house is a wreck because we're getting rid of things, but it's hard to look at the disorganization, the piles, and not think wow this mess is all my fault.

J has also tasked me with really getting down and dirty and start listing as much as I can on my Etsy vintage shop.  Plus we are both starting to list on eBay.  And I also spent Sunday creating an Etsy shop for him, for the new crafts he is working on.  All he has to do is make his signs, I will manage everything else for him. Photos, listings, packing up and mailing.  Between Etsy and eBay, I go to the post office about three times a week right now.  So it's a lot going on, mentally. Physically, it's not really that much.  I'm trying my best, but I always have that voice in the back of my head that "my" best sucks compared to the rest of the world.  I mean, I just got off the phone with J, who is working in the mid-west right now.  He just finished working a 17-hour overnight shift, and he had to drive through a blizzard and over a foot of snow to get there and back.  Yes, really, and I'm sitting here whining because I don't have the energy to upload a few photos online or put a 50 cent sticker on an old coffee mug.

J has pretty much told me/asked me to focus on getting rid of things any way that I can, even if I donate.  He doesn't care.  Last weekend he went through all the old papers in his office filing cabinet and we had a nice little blaze going in our outdoor firepit with it all.  I'm going to try to do the same this week too.  I have an enormous problem with hoarding papers- old notes, Christmas cards from 20 years ago, recipes I've clipped out of magazines.  I've always dragged those things from house to house, and now I simply can't.  So it's a huge project, but I would hope that I can find the energy to do even this.  I mean, I can sit my ass on the couch and watch TV while I do this, how hard can it be?

Part of it for me is engaging the brain cells needed to make the decisions.  Keep, toss, donate.  And the things I've attached emotional importance to will be the toughest- they have no monetary value but I want to keep them.  I've saved every movie stub, airline ticket, vacation brochure, note, card from my life with J- obviously I don't want to part with those, even if I just have them all stuffed in a box somewhere.  Then I have all the photos I ever took during my years with my ex.  I have all my old college textbooks.  I have old magazines from the 1990's.  I have board games I haven't played in 20 years.  Just a lot of stuff that I've kept, and it's really uncalled for.  I don't even know where to begin.  And that's the hardest part.  But today I'm going to try to get started.  Even if I just clean out one drawer.  That recipe book I've had for 30 years but I've never made a single meal from?  What is the likelihood that I ever will?  Why do I need to keep it?  I find most of my recipes online these days, like the rest of the world.  Why is it so hard to let go of things like this?  My mom goes to the dollar store and buys the same Easter card for me every year, why am I saving these, will I go back and read them one day?  No.

But it feels like I'm throwing away my history, my past, a part of me.  I know there are certain things I won't let go of.  I'm not going to throw away photos of my late dog from my first marriage, but I sure as hell don't need to keep all the vacation photos of my ex.  But I literally have several boxes of photos to go through. I can't sit and look at every single one and make a decision on each one individually.  Yes, that's a pretty shot of the mountains or the beach, but it's from 25 years ago, do I need it?  No one is even in the picture, and I know I took it on a trip with the ex.  Do I want it?  Why?  Get rid of it!!  It has no place in my current life, in my new home, in my future.

I am not going to get stressed out this soon into the process.  I've got loads of time to do all of this.  Our goal is to hopefully move by the end of 2017, and that is enough breathing room for even someone as slow as I am to complete thinning out the hoard.

MISS GEE

A New Phase, A New Place

Wow, it happened.  J and I fell in love with the cute little house and made an offer and they accepted.  I can't believe it.  If all goes well, we will close in a little over a month.  I don't think it has set in yet.  I have spent the last few days both excited for the future, wondering if we made the right decision, and feeling... barely any anxiety.  Yes, that is correct.  I expected to immediately start stressing out about this, but I'm not.  Perhaps that's because we don't plan to move right away and it doesn't seem "real" yet.

The plan is to move in about two years, and in that timeframe we will downsize our belongings, keeping just what we need and what we absolutely love. Keeping the things that are truly important to us, discarding the excess.  This house is less than half the size of our current house, but we made that choice deliberately.  It is time to unload and simplify.  It is long overdue.  We have been slaves- financially and physically and mentally- to our material possessions, to the things that clutter and crowd our home.  With both of us turning 50 soon, it's time to start living differently.  This current life we lead, has become a burden.

I've spent many of my posts talking about how much I hate the town we've lived in for the past 7+ years, how trapped I feel in our current house and this neighborhood.  When J took his new position of traveling full time last year, we knew we were free to live anywhere we wanted, and we've had many talks about our future.  I want to think buying this house was not an impulse, because we've had so many deep conversations about moving.  But it feels impulsive, because we found it online, drove five hours to see it a few days later, and made an offer right on the spot.  I watch enough shows on HGTV to know that people do that all the time, but it feels weird for me. Yet as I sit here today listening to the pounding and engine noises and rattling of machinery and trucks blocking my driveway, watching the crew sit on the curb on their break staring into my windows, as they build the two new houses across the street from us, I know in my mind that this was a good decision.  The little bit of empty "space" I was used to, my buffer, my calming view of trees will soon be gone.

And even though we've said we will give ourselves two years to move, I know it may be longer or shorter.  The way we feel about our current living situation, it just might be sooner.  I've already grabbed a spiral notebook and started making lists of what we need to keep and what we need to get rid of.  I was surprised at how easily I added items to the "get rid of" list.  It felt good, it felt freeing, it felt as though I was throwing off a great burdensome weight.  It felt right.  I look at things around the house and say, why did we ever buy this? What part does it play in my life?  We bought these things to fill up the corners of our way-too-big house, the house we "thought" we needed to be happy.  But, less truly is more in this case.  This house has always been too big for me to manage, to keep clean, and it's caused me a great deal of grief in how I see myself, how I believe I am a failure as a wife and homemaker.  The house kicked my ass.

And I know the waiting and planning and pining away for the sweet little new house will be a bit like my divorce from W- I had to be "separated" for at least a year before I could even file for divorce, and all that time I had J in my life, and I was just waiting to move on with our future.  Just like I could go see J here and there while I waited out my separation, we can go up every so often and start to shape the new house into "ours".  We recognize that right now, we are in no way ready to just pack it up 100% and move next month.  We have a lot of work to do here before we can move forward.

This house is just outside of J's hometown, and that played into our decision.  As the only son, it's important for him to be near his parents now, to build a better relationship with his father in his last years, to be there for his mother when the time comes.  I am okay with that.  I have no desire to move back to my hometown, even though all my family is there.  I hated it there when I was growing up, and my feelings haven't changed- but that's for another post.  The area we are moving to is SO different from the area we live in now.  Here, the big city is all about wealth and flashy cars and expensive restaurants and being seen and living in the right zip code- that's why so many of the crazy-ass reality TV shows on right now are filmed here, because of the types of people who live here.  Where we are going to, they pride themselves on green spaces and food co-ops and downtown art and music festivals and community.  Quiet and peace and earth, balanced with just enough places to go eat and shop and have an evening out, but not drowning in them, not depending on them to survive.

Not only will moving to a smaller house hopefully bring us comfort, but the larger property will hopefully bring us the peace of not being crowded up on strangers that polite society insists we call neighbors.  When we moved here, we had never been to this town before, we didn't know anything about it.  Now we are going to a place where my husband was born and raised, where we visit a dozen times a year, where we already have favorite restaurants and a favorite book shop, and a favorite organic grocery store.  Where his sister lives seven miles away, his parents eighteen miles.  I want to believe that this is the best decision for our future.  Even the style and layout of the house and property are so perfect for us, so much what we've always wanted.

I don't like to think of myself as "old", but I am getting there.  And soon.  My god, I can join AARP this year!  The plan is for this house to be our "forever" home, and I know plans change sometimes.  But if this is the home for the last half of our married life, then I am amazingly okay with that.  In the meantime, life goes on here.  We will start planning for yard sales and lots of trips to Goodwill.  For the first time in a LONG time, I am feeling hopeful, I am feeling optimistic, I am feeling lighter already. I know my depression didn't start when we moved here, but it did reach new and treacherous depths of darkness.  Of course I had depression and anxiety long before J and I ever met, and I felt in control of it. But when we made the move here in 2008, well that is when it all took over my life and started eating me alive from the inside.  I am feeling encouraged that leaving this place will give me some relief.

People all over the world buy houses and move, every minute of every day.  We've done it several times already.  This process will not be cause for me to go off the deep end.  If and when I need help, I know J will be there, and I also know there is no pressure to move, no date on a calendar to eyeball.  J is not going to push me, he knows my physical and emotional limitations, and respects that I am who I am.  I know there will be plenty of stressful moments during this transition, but I will continue to remind myself that finally, for maybe the first time in my life, there is a beautiful, glowing, warm light at the end of my dark, painful tunnel.

MISS GEE

Stunned

I can't believe I am writing this post, I am in shock.  After lots of fantasizing and talking about it, we are going to actually look at this house this weekend.  In another town.  In another state.  Up in the mountains.  No one knows, and of course the likelihood of buying it is probably zero.  But just the fact that after all this time, we are finally taking action, has left me speechless.  We have talked about finding our "forever" home for so long now, that I thought of it as only a dream.  I look online ALL the time at houses, in our area, in nearby towns or states.  We've talked about three or four years down the road, making the move.  But this weekend I showed J this house online, and said what a shame we are not actually wanting to move right now, because this is what we've been looking for.  A smaller home so we can get rid of all our shit and downsize into something more comfortable and cozy.  And getting out of a "neighborhood" into the country- this sweet little home has over seven acres.  But I show J homes all the time and say, oh how pretty.  This one struck a chord with my husband, and while he was sitting at the airport Monday morning he kept looking at it online, and without even letting me know what he was up to, he spent Monday getting us preapproved for a loan and finding a realtor in that area.  And now we are going to drive up there this weekend and actually LOOK at this house, as potential buyers!  I am ecstatic and elated and a nervous wreck and in shambles all at the same time.  I am scared and excited.  I am not, however, getting my hopes up.  I am just amazed at the idea that J was so open to the idea of us moving into the next phase of our life and future together!  WOW!

MISS GEE

Sisyphus

I am determined to have a good week, starting off with today.  J had to leave for the airport before 6am this morning for a new assignment, and it is dark and rainy.  It will be that way all week.  As tempted as I was to go back to bed, I stayed up and got my day rolling, dishes washed, laundry going, showered, healthy breakfast.  After last week, I just don't believe I can have another crappy week.  Yes, I still hurt almost everywhere, my plantar fasciitis alone kept me up all night and wearing my stupid foot brace today has left me lurching along in distress.  

But I am not going to let it get to me this week.  If the power of suggestion has any real weight, then I will force away the blues and the pain and the self-loathing for a few days.  It was so bad last week that I couldn't even get through my physical therapy session- meant to exorcise the worst of my pain- and after just twenty minutes into my hour I had to jump off the table and admit I just couldn't finish.

We had a good weekend, J and I.  Right away on Friday, as much as I tried my best to hide it from him and smile through it, he could tell I was very much in a bad place.  He whisked me away to dinner at my favorite Lebanese haunt- there's nothing that a platter of fresh baba ghanoush and hot pita bread can't fix. Then he took me shopping for supplies at the craft store, and when I hemmed and hawed over things, undecided, he put them in the cart for me.  The man does know me only too well.

He knows how to soothe my aches, both physical and spiritual.  I can't imagine my life without him at my side.  The next night after a day of chores, when I was still tired and worn down, he made me get dressed up and made reservations at a "fancy" restaurant, and said he thought it was important for us to still have dates and get out of the house.  He said sitting around on the couch and watching TV on a Saturday night was not healthy.

So I'm going to continue on this week.  The pain sucks, the depression sucks, it all sucks.  But my life doesn't have to suck.  I will do the things I'm supposed to do, the things I want to do.  I know my body and my mind are going to hurt no matter if I'm sitting like a lump on the bed watching mindless reality shows, or if I'm busy with housework and pottery and pricing items for our March show.  I might as well spend my days doing something worthwhile.  I might as well clean in the basement.  I might as well dust my bookshelves.  I won't feel any better just lazing about wishing Hazel would miraculously show up at my door.

At the end of a day, at the end of the week, I might be swallowing a handful of something-anything for the pain, but I'll look back and say, well at least I accomplished this or that.  For 2016 I splurged and bought myself an expensive planner for a change, no more of those dull vinyl-covered things from the office supply store. I fill each day with notes and to-do items and what I ate and how the weather was and where J was at and how many steps were on my activity monitor and what book I'm reading and little sayings to give me hope or strength and colorful stickers.  Okay, maybe that's very preschool of me, but it works. It's actually helped me get through the bad days.  Even on a truly shitty day, I can still find things to fill the empty spaces, even if it's just my thoughts about having a truly shitty day.

I do have a lot of good things on my horizon, things to look forward to, things to make plans for.  Yes, some of it will be work, but none of it is anything that's being forced on me.  Any undertaking on my agenda, is always one of my own creation.  J even asked me to do a favor for him this week, and I'll be damned if I'll let my sweet husband down.

Last week I let it all get to me, and let it get me down.  I am going to spend this week fighting back against it.  I know those weeks will always come, but they also always go too.  So today I will trudge uphill and make it as close to the top as I can.  Tomorrow I may be starting back down at the bottom again, but that's okay.  That's tomorrow.  Today it is still today!

MISS GEE