Moving. Erg.

22 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a Comment

Yes, I’m moving. I gave my notice not because I wanted to but because I had to. I can’t afford this place and it’s WAY too far out of the town and where I need to be for me. 30KM round trip with a car that’s eating gas because it’s not happy is NOT the best thing I’ve ever found. There are lots of things in my world that I love, and while the patio, garden and goofy horses in the backyard with hummingbirds that sound like bugs are a few of them, not spending a SHITTONNE of money on gas trumps all that. Walking to work does too.

I’ve been trolling pinterest, which is dangerous. Everything looks so EASY, until you try to DO it of course. Random wall thingy with mesh and succulents? SURE!! Until you have moss and chicken wire and soil all over your floor.

there are a few things I’m going to try when I get moved. If I get moved. Ideally, The Move will happen on Sunday. Normally, I’d KNOW when I was going to be able to move by now, but, well, I’m still waiting to hear whether or not I got the place. That said, they have a pet deposit (because I was dumb and said I had cats… they’re checking my references) and a damage deposit (combined are worth $758), so I suspect we’re good. I’m not pulling punches with the property sales guy. “I need to know if I should be applying for other places or not.” “I should know by tomorrow.” “Doesn’t answer my question.”

…

Think I’m going to enquire about a few more just in case. (FML, two have already gone by the wayside because I have animals [I think]. This is ridiculous. 11th hour plus. I’m exhausted.)

Too busy. Can’t talk.

26 Tuesday Mar 2013

Posted by in Life, Personal

≈ Leave a Comment

Best Or write. Fingers are flying over the keyboard attached to things other than the blog.

I owe several people posts here. Including books and numerology and food too I think. Once I find my head above water, we’ll get there. In the meantime, I have to go. There are words to put into pretty order and asses at bars that need saving.

Creativity, I think.

16 Saturday Mar 2013

Posted by in Personal

≈ Leave a Comment

There’s this… thing inside me trying to get out. Struggling. I can’t quite articulate it, and that’s pretty damn frustrating. It’s a thing that wants to create, I think. It’s a restless energy that’s difficult to diffuse. I want to write; I want to string together words to make sentences that sing. I also kind of want to draw. Or paint. Or… I dunno, decoupage something. (ok, not really that last one so much.) Thing is, I don’t draw. In fact, I can’t draw worth shit. I also do not paint. Ask my ex how much I paint. I start a room, run out of steam and stop after half the room is a bright emerald green and the rest is a dull beige colour. BUT! The bedroom is hot pink. With silver trim. (I also do not paint pictures. See “cannot draw”.)

I also want to cook, but it’s already 10pm. I want to bake, but that rarely works out. What I really want is whatever …this is OUT. I want it to be fulfilled. I want the middle of things I write to make sense and be as good as the beginnings and ends. I want the time to really heal, stretch and release and when I’m damn good and ready to, to write. I want my home to be a retreat, a paradise, a refuge. Without spending a ton of cash. (Actually, anyone who wants to help with that last one? Ideas, thoughts, suggestions, ‘frugal’ goodness, themes… lemme know.) Right now, home is a pit stop. A place I spend a few hours a day, many of them sound asleep, before I have to get up and do it all over again. I’m concerned I might need to move. I kinda think that might be one of the answers.

The violence of January has affected me more deeply than I ever thought possible. I’m a ball of stress, with shoulders about my ears, a messy house that’s not a home (yet. Still.), and a stifled creative in need of an outlet. I feel like I’m not taking deep enough breaths, like I’m kind of melting down from the inside out. Trying to keep a semblance of normality about me so that the melting down doesn’t spill out all over the place.  Sometimes, the melting down seeps out — usually through my eyes and I collapse into a pile. I sleep. I conveniently forget to go to class. I’ve got a month to fix that up and pull off at least a C in at least two courses.

I’m off work tomorrow–as far as the morning goes at least, and plan to spend the morning with coffee attacking the house, doing the rest of what I didn’t do tonight. So far, all I’ve accomplished is a nap, a beer, loading the dishwasher and doing a load of laundry. My office is a DISASTER. I need to get a ton of things put up for sale, and get them OUT of my house (anyone need a dining room table with four chairs? A butcher block counter thing on wheels? A bike with helmet, clips and various accoutrements? Guitar Hero guitars x2 + 4 or 5 xbox games? I could go on. And on. And on.) and the afternoon doing homework. I’ve taken a few too many afternoons off in a fit of “omg, I cannot function right now.”

Edited to add: Also? My eyebrows are a disaster.

Tattooed

12 Tuesday Mar 2013

Posted by in Personal

≈ Leave a Comment

Tattooed – the word conjures up several different images. Inscribing phrases on my body to carry things around with me I haven’t yet had the courage to find outside my own skin. A song, tattooed on my heart and on my brain. A person, tattooed all over me.

This is probably the blog-post equivalent of vaguebooking, and well, so be it. Is what it is.

Things here are complicated, more so than normal. They’re difficult, more so than before. They’re also charming, desperate (in a good way), attached, all-consuming, ready to surrender. Falling, fallen. Trying not to show it all that much because it’s not only just too soon, but I can’t be, won’t be, refuse to be the one who makes that first move. Life is a giant chess game, and I’ve never been good at chess. All I can do right now is react to the moves made, show as much as I’m shown, maybe even not quite that much.

In the meantime, I’m on repeat, on stand by, in the wings. As I remind myself as often as I can, no one knows what the next moment will bring, let alone what will happen tomorrow. What I do know, in this moment, is that I’m beside myself, in, done & sold.

As sure as the rain pounding on my roof tonight, as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow beginning another day, I’m in. Sold.

Yours.

Difficult to Explain

07 Thursday Mar 2013

Posted by in Personal

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

, , , , ,

I’m a little in awe of how much this whole violence thing has affected me. Every time I think I’m handling things, or I’ve got it all DOWN, something happens to knock me off my carefully constructed pedestal.

I’m still working to get back on my feet, clean the house and make it mine. I’ve had to talk to him a few times, and saw him once when he came to get the dog and some of his stuff. That event ended up with me sitting on the floor, crying. Not pretty, and certainly not the strong girl attitude I try to project. That veneer is rubbing off and I’m starting to show the sensitive spots.

We spoke earlier this week about various housekeeping items and he offered to bring me Molly for overnight Wednesday/Thursday. I couldn’t answer at the time, and said I would think about it and let him know in the morning. I didn’t. I avoided the entire situation and texted around 430 Wednesday afternoon and said that it was obviously a no-go, that I wasn’t ready for it yet. And then I pulled over and cried again. (To my great amusement, there is one single tear running down my face right now. I feel like I should be dewey and on camera somewhere. Oh, and dressed much better than I am at the moment. Yoga pants and the solitary tear do not make an attractive heroine.)

***

I had to put this away for a few days in order to get my brain wrapped around, well… life. I’m completely overwhelmed by everything. I have wanted to write my own stuff — even doing some journaling or something, and I can’t even get that done. I’m exhausted.

I’ve got several writing clients, which is fantastic, and I’m excited about them, plus the bar gig which is also going well. By the time I get through all of the stuff that I need to do for both of those, I’ve barely looked at school and the homework there — I know i’m way behind on at least one assignment, which is currently sitting half complete in another window, there’s one huge one looming (with a group no less, which is like trying to get kittens to do what you want for just TWO minutes, OMGPLEASE) and due on Friday, (so yeah, tomorrow) along with another short story I’ve not yet even begun, and cleaning up a second memoir piece which again, i’ve only barely grazed.

Sometimes the detailing of all of the things that need doing is actually helpful, and then I walk into the living room and it’s a disaster and I think, “Oh FFS. Because there’s THIS too.” Other times, writing it down like i did just now up ^ there makes it even more holy shit. Like it just has.

I want so badly to explain how the violence is still affecting me, but right now I can barely hold my head above water in order to explain that, so I guess in a way, my complete inability to explain it, explains it.

(Right?)

**** Updated: The big first part of the psych project was completed. It was a cluster fuck that resulted in only three of us really working on it, out of a possible five. We’ll see how that shakes out.

I finished the project that was sitting in the other window and while it’s 3 weeks late (one of those being reading week, so really only 2), I’ll have to see if he accepts it. My 10 page memoir is due tomorrow as well and I can’t wait to get that passed into him. I’m happier about this second one. Guess we’ll see what kind of responses the first piece brought.

Tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow

01 Friday Feb 2013

Posted by in Life, Personal

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

, , , , ,

I went back to school this week – on Wednesday. I’ve got two weeks till my first psych midterm, and a couple of weeks before big parts of my term’s major projects are due. Short stories, memoirs, revised hindsight letters, a research idea page, a research proposal, and a precis. That takes me into March.

I’ve been feeling pretty out of balance, and because of that am seriously looking at either the Whole 30 program or following an Ayurvedic course intended to bring my doshas back into balance. It’s certainly time to do SOMETHING.

Court was on Thursday, and several government and official sounding people have called and left messages on my voicemail, but then have been completely unreachable. That? Not cool you guys. I can deduce some of what happened on Thursday, but it sure would be nice to know for sure. I don’t know what has happened to the no contact order, nothing.

It may not make a lot of sense, but the time between The Incident and The Court Date really felt like a period of safety to me. I had a cushion in which I felt like nothing could happen, whether it actually would or not was completely beside the point. I had some space to breathe. Now, without that impending court date, and the lack of anything smacking of official (that I am aware of as yet), I have a wariness, more so than before. A close friend asked me this afternoon if I was ok, or going to be ok, I was kinda buried in his shoulder at the time, and was I sure. I nodded, not trusting myself to speak because the tears were threatening. I told him to stop asking me because I was gonna cry and as close as we are, I’m not a fan of doing the ugly cry I’m not sure I can stop in front of anyone. Of course, now, I’m letting them flow and trying to get it out.

Tomorrow (and tomorrow and tomorrow) begins a 3-Day Weekend of Getting Shit Done. I need to do some homework, I need to contact a bunch of folk. I need to put laundry away, do some, clean up, and move shit around. The house is not refreshed or mine yet, and it needs to be. Plus, it’s the second, and that means there’s only 26 more days to get some fires going around here.

Dark Nights of the Soul

26 Saturday Jan 2013

Posted by in Personal

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

NNBI had to write a reflection paper for psych last term — I decided on exploring my experiences through depression. My prof suggested I read Thomas Moore’s Dark Nights of the Soul to gain some insight on why these dark periods occur in our life. Moore’s theory was that the Dark Night all of us face at one time or another is a time similar to Jonas and the Whale — a womb of sorts. We are able to float in the darkness, safe in the knowledge that we’re going to end up ok on the other end, but not sure exactly how we’re getting there.

I’m thinking a lot about this as I go through this week and as I face the days ahead. I’m trying to embrace the change, have faith in the fact that I will come out on the other side of this dark night and be stronger, smarter and more able to express and protect myself.

The other thing that I’m pondering is something J sent me when I was at my lowest point in 2011. It’s an article written by someone who’d obviously been there before, talking about the Hindu Goddess Akhilanda. This translates to Never Not Broken.

Akhilanda maintains her power by constantly shifting and living in different selves at the same time.  What stuck out to me this reading through is the following:

The thing about going through sudden or scary … transitions is that one of the things you lose is your future: your expectations of what the story of your life so far was going to become. When you lose that partner or that job or that person, your future dissolves in front of you.

This Akhilanda knows exactly what she’s talking about, because that’s how I’m feeling. The good news is, now I get to make the choice of how I move forward.

In pieces, in a pile on the floor, with no idea how to go forward, your expectations of the future are meaningless. Your stories about the past do not apply. You are in flux, you are changing, you are flowing in a new way, and this is an incredibly powerful opportunity to become new again: to choose how you want to put yourself back together. Confusion can be an incredible teacher—how could you ever learn if you already had it all figured out? [Elephant Journal, June 1, 2011]

So this time around, during my dark night, I’m going to embrace it, live in it, and emerge stronger, brighter and dare I say, shinier than before.

Stupid Question

24 Thursday Jan 2013

Posted by in Personal

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

, , ,

“Are you ok?”

I know people mean well. I know they are trying to find a way to reach out and find a way to connect. I get that, but it’s kind of a dumb question, because honestly, three days after being punched by a guy I thought loved me — nothing is ok.

I appreciate the concern, but the question needs to be rephrased as “how are you doing today?”

I was at the Victim Services counselling today, and she said “there are resources available for battered women,” and I thought, “That’s awesome, because they need it. What about me? What can you…. ohhhh. wait.” Shit. It’s a big thing to consider.

There are things that I forget that I do now, things that I forget that I don’t do anymore. I do lock my door when I am at home and when I leave. Carrying three bags of groceries today and running into the solid locked door made me remember. Oh yeah. Locks.

I am way more conscious of the space around me, the people around me. Even the vehicles around me. I guess that’s a good thing. Makes me a better driver I suppose. I am looking forward to the day when the sight of a large white GMC truck does not send me into a tail spin and I do not immediately look for an out. I am looking forward to the day when I do not interpret every flash of the security lighting as a threat but instead realize that it’s a deer. Or something.

All the things I don’t have to do anymore are right now rather enjoyable – watch hockey. Watch anything I don’t want to for that matter. Figure out way beforehand what to feed another person because if I do not cook, they will die. Go to the grocery store and buy only things that make me happy.

I also forget, however, that I have a black eye and it’s healing so it’s itchy. Do not scratch. It hurts.

I’m trying to be gentle with myself and remember to take it day by day. Know that I have February’s expenses covered, and while that will take almost all of the resources I have, I’m good till March. With luck, I’ll actually get some work done tomorrow and get a few jobs and such applied for. Either that or I’ll end up sleeping until two pm like I did today. It’s a coin toss really.