The week in pain

So… this week’s theme seems to be a recurrence of last week – pain. Last week I fell down 12 stairs and did myself some injury… I seemed not to have learned the lesson from last week, cuz the hurting myself thing seems to have replayed itself THIS week.

Like a broken record. I wonder what I’m not seeing.

The BIG BAG of GAH and FUCK ME moments:

This week was just a big clusterfuck from beginning to end, let me tell you. Between computer issues at home and renovation issues at work I didn’t have much time last week to get online and clear up a few things… and that really made things WORSE.

1. PAIN
   After I fell down the stairs last week I thought I was lucky enough to have escaped with just bruised hind quarters… and possibly a bit of bruising on and down my leg.  While my posterior has seen great improvements (and a rainbow of colours) in the last week, the intense knot of pain in my lower back, just above my pelvic bone/spine connecting spot (sorry, I have NO freaking idea how to explain this) will not go away. I have tried hot and cold and rubs and tylenol and advil and soaks and stretching and sleeping and OTC things… but nothing.  The healthline number I called stated that it was most likely that I caused a bit of damage when I fell last Wednesday, likely because I tensed up as it happened, and I can either try massage or go to a chiropractor… for now I’m unimpressed.  This back pain has made it difficult for me to sleep comfortably OR sit in front of a computer – so I haven’t been online much this week when I’m not at work.

1. MISSUNDERSTANDING
   I should really say misunderstanding-S because this week has been NOTHING but missing the intentions — obviously the missed stair that led me to fall down is was only ONE missed action and intention. I’ve been missing phone calls, missing connections, and miss using words/terms all week, leading to an inevitable fuck up all over. Not the least of which lead the person I consider to be my best friend to lambast me (and rightly so) for not correctly conveying frustration when trying to understand something he apparently had no interest in discussing with me. The conversation ended with what, could best be described as him slamming the phone down and stomping away. Only less loud.  And while I regret the way things were worded, and I have been considering my emotions on the matter, I don’t know how to concretely resolve the issue or if there is something inherently broken that is beyond repair. I can say I’m sorry, because I am, but I cannot debase myself and beg for forgiveness because the debasing is the basic issue that has been causing the hurt in the first place.

1. ENNUI
   I’m feeling the need to change and change my scenery. A few months ago I had started making plans to visit my best friend but cancelled it because I wasn’t sure, yet. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to take a chance to sit with him and talk to him in person, I was afraid of the person I was becoming and what I was feeling — how things were changing with his love life and my love life and no idea if I’d be welcome – and now I regret letting things get in my way because it might be too late. Not too late to visit the city, but too late to consider taking that chance, making the leap of faith… I realize I need the time away from my work and home and kids to stretch my independence.

The goodies

While giant piles of clusterfucky horrendousness are not great, I have had some interesting and good things happen as well.

1. REALIZATIONS
   Whether they were comfortable or not, I have realized a few things that I needed to face in my internal life. The pain of learning sucks, but there is relief as well.
2. COLOUR
   After living in my house for 3 or 4 months, I finally am getting around to painting MY bedroom, in the first step in making my bedroom into a sanctuary for me and my soul.
3. FRIENDs
   While I have to accept that I am estranged (at best) from my (best) friend for the foreseeable future, I have been able to connect with my other best friend from afar. She was the Maid Of Honour at my wedding, and my friend from grade 5 on… while our friendship isn’t as close as it was before I married and had children (partly because she lives in another country I have not been able to visit) her current settling down (in another country) to have a child of her own is likely to make it so that we aren’t so far apart in life experiences anymore. Having the chance to go out for supper with her and just talk was great, and eased my mood regarding the estrangement with my other best friend.
4. PLANS
   I have decided that although my original trip was cancelled I will find another time to take the trip anyway… by myself. While I enjoy spending time with Reg, I don’t know if I want to wait forever to go exploring, and so I am considering just making my plans to go East somewhere and go alone out into the world. I don’t have to fear it anymore, I’m a big girl. If I want to go to an opera or see the ocean I should be able to do that… even for an extended weekend.

Even though my Zentangle class was cancelled (although according to her blog she had the class, she just told me she didn’t… hmmm) I think I will start looking into more of these small creative workshops and classes and things around the city.

5. OFFLINE
While I certainly enjoy keeping in touch with a wide variety of people online, the last 2 weeks – with computer issue and pain issues keeping me down for the count – I have been spending a lot more time than usual by myself not online. I have realized things that I want to do, and things that I have missed doing, and am starting to work towards the unclaimed goals I left behind years ago. I love my online life, but I don’t want to ONLY have an online life… I want to EXPLORE…

So… there you have it…

The good… the bad… the bad that warped into good… and hopefully the good that will transform the bad…

I’m sitting at work listening to the howl of the wind as my province falls into yet another late winter storm pounds the wall and window beside me. I can feel the draught from under the door and the cracks in the window. It’s freezing here (0C) and it’s hard to believe that just yesterday it was +18C (although with the ever present wind)… we’ve been promised or threatened with up to 20cm of snow… and from the chill and the sound of the wind it’s not unlikely either.

This week has been a total mish-mash of ups and downs and weirdness and unexpected twists and turns…

The bad Stuff

NO ME TIME.

Seriously, I felt like I was booked all week with things. While I generally LIKE to keep busy on the weeks I don’t have the kids, I was also really hoping to have a portion of time to myself this week to get a bunch of cleaning, organizing and unpacking done around the house. Unfortunately with the Easter break messing with the joint custody schedule, the last month I have not had more than 1 weekend at a time without the kids (instead of 2 weekends)… and every weekend they are with ME I have been chauffeuring them to various social obligations.

This week I was booked and most days I didn’t get home until 9pm… so a lot of the cleaning and things that I wanted to do didn’t get done, and I have the kids for the next 2 weekends (and then I only get HALF a weekend when they go to their dad’s LATE for a 1 week “visit”) so some of those things will have to wait for a bit longer.

Don’t get me WRONG, I prefer to have my kids with me… but there are just some things that are easier to do without having to worry about having the kids underfoot. I am hoping, though, that we can get the basement In some sort of order over these 2 weeks so that we can use it as a craft/family area and not just a clutter catcher J.

Weather

Today we are having a “late season” storm. I wish I could easily convey the noise of the wind smashing its fury against the wall and window of my office. I wish I could explain the sleet pelting against the windows, the feeling of being yanked and buffeted about by the wind.

Suffice it to say, things are a bit out of sorts here. I am at work, desperately wishing to get the LAST piece of information I need so I that I can pack up and retreat home before the highway between my work and my home are officially closed. I have spent the day listening to the fury outside and dealing with out-of-sorts engineers and construction workers who have been unexpectedly trapped in our city for the weekend because the highways THEY need to travel ARE closed.

I just want to go home and not have to worry about the anger of the late season storm right now.

Wanting a break

The last few weeks I have just been wanting to get away from it all… but since I moved I have barely had a day to myself to get done what I need to do! So I have been trying to figure out when I can get away and visit Sunil out in the no-so-wilds of Toronto again… I needs me some BIG books.

Things I am not sure how to respond to

The Noodle

Earlier this week I was contacted by the Noodle via FaceBook message. I was shocked that he would bother to contact me at all, given that we haven’t really talked much more than 3 or 4 text messages passed back and forth after I moved (because he still had a set of my keys for the old place).  I had the impression that he had really not been all that interested in me as a date OR a person.

He pointed out that he had visited my blog (which I knew he knew about) and that I had seemed very much more BITTER than I had led him to believe, which had lead him to believe that either I hated him or that I was a very angry and bitter woman.

While I felt disturbed by the way things went, and how much I tried to make this work with him, I took away from it not anger or resentment but what I could have done differently and also what I learned about MYSELF and what I wanted in not only a relationship, but out of my life.

But his feelings are his feelings. He felt that I was bitter. I felt that I had misread a situation and that I should have done better. He felt I was angry. I felt hurt that I misunderstood what we had to be a real relationship when he felt it was casual– and the interpretation of the term that way really hurt my heart.

I was not sure, given the wording of the message, what he was asking for (or had wanted to ask for), but I asked if he would want to go out for “coffee” sometime. I had appreciated the part he had played in my life, and what lessons I learned about who I was and what I wanted… and thanked him for that.

I’m not sure what to think about the situation. In the intervening 2 months since we dissolved our association with each other I have realized how I should have been more forthright and upfront about what I wanted, even when I changed my mind, and clear about my own boundaries.

My response stated all I wanted to say about the ending and my self-recrimination for how things went. It was a catalyst to further understanding of my patterns and what I really want, and that isn’t a bad thing, whether this finalizes any contact we ever have or not.

The good…

(Because I am hoping to sneak away early today for safety reasons, I better make this pretty brief)

In no particular order:

Started an art journal online workshop thing with DirtyFootprints Studio. I have wanted to do this sorta thing for a LONG time, and so when this came up I felt the desire to JUMP and start. I haven’t had a lot of time, yet, to do this stuff… but its not a time sensitive type thing so I am not gonna stress. So far I have only managed to glop colour and gel medium onto 1 page… but I have lots of time yet.

My own HOME! Yes, a LOT of the rooms are still “builder beige” and I really detest that colour, but I am slowly making the space my own. I have So many ideas, just not sure how to get them done. I have started to realize that I need some power tools and some basic know-how… but I don’t have to ask permission and I can do what I need to do to make this place MINE. I can’t express how HAPPY I am as I  walk through my house at night, to realize that this is all MINE and its okay if I change things.

Secret vegetarianism. The weeks that I do not have the kids, I have found that more often than not I eat a mostly vegetarian diet. I am loving cooking things that are less reliant on meats and more flavour based… and I’m looking into going more either vegetarian and cutting down on meats.

My kids will be home in a few minutes, so I am gonna post this and go…

Have a great weekened everyone

I missed doing a Check-in last week because, well… things were crazy (and I was crazy exhausted because my neighbors woke me up SUPER early (4am) and I wasn’t well (UTI))… anyway here I am again…

The Bad Stuff

Still Exhausted

Just plain exhausted.  It seems that no matter how early I go to bed at night (I try to be in bed by 10pm, which is “early” since I get home from whatever activity I had that night at 8:30pm or 9:30pm and then I usually need to wash dishes and sweep floors and do some housekeeping) I don’t seem to be able to get a RESTFUL sleep.  With my anxiety over everything right now, and worrying that at any minute something unexpected will catch me off guard, I tend to wake up 4-6 times during the night.

Too Much to do

While I know I will get it done (I really have no choice with this) I am also keenly aware that this time I am completely on my own.  This is the first time in my life that I haven’t had either a partner OR family to help me move. And its freaking SCARY, because I feel like I am leaping out there and risking everything without any support. And I know that even when I was married I didn’t have support. And I know that I didn’t have support from R at all. But it FEELS different not having anyone at the end of the day… you know?

I just HAVE to get everything out of the old place in order to clean the place completely for the landlord. I might not like the way he treated me, or the fact that he never did any upkeep of the property once he left, but it is basic respect to leave the place clean…

I will do what I can to get it done. That’s all I can do.

Hard times in my head

I have been attending a group for women who have been involved in domestic violence situations AND have started seeing a counselor as well this week. This has been bringing up a lot of feelings that I had stuffed down for so long. I have been feeling LESS safe in my suite, with the partying going on over my head at all hours of the night, strangers coming and going and slamming doors, and having to call the police several times a week to get the neighbors above me to turn their music down so it doesn’t rattle the windows and pictures. I have been remembering all sorts of nastiness with theEx, theStalker, and ColdBlood that I thought that I had forgotten – outbursts, feelings of intimidation, fearful feelings – and it hasn’t really made it easy for me to deal with a lot of the things that I have going on in my life.  I have it on good authority, though, that I am, in fact, NOT crazy to have felt that these men treated my badly and that I DO have the right to have distanced myself from them.

Still… I think it’s gonna take time.

Haven’t been doing the journaling/tarot thing

I sorta dropped the ball this past weekend when the UTI and exhaustion caught me off guard, and the stress took over when I got LESS done than I wanted to (because of the feeling of ICK)… and the overwhelm took over when I got overscheduled and realized that I had only 3 weeks left. What that has meant is that I seemed to have dropped the 5 minute journaling/tarot card pull from my daily routine.  And I have realized I have felt… um… less grounded lately too. Although that COULD be that there is a deadline  or two or three bearing down on me right now…

I think maybe cutting the reading before bed by 5-10 minutes and putting this back into my routine might not be a bad idea.

The GOOD Stuff

Almost FREE

Although the stress is likely to do me in this next 3 weeks… I am almost free from the daily stress and pressure of living in a shared dwelling with people who do not know how to respect differences and needs of others. Maybe it’s wrong of me to expect them to have some sort of idea of how to respectfully SHARE space and do things like:

• Clean up after their dog when she messes in the laundry room
• Clean up the yard after she deposits dog-logs all over EVERYTHING
• Not leave garbage on the back step where their dog will rip it open and SHRED it all over the yard
• Remove their laundry from the laundry room when they are done
• Turn their music down when asked politely, or by 11pm as per the general noise ordinance
• NOT slam the doors when they go in and out
• NOT allow their friends to try to get into my suite (or not DARE their friends to do that)
• NOT smoke drugs (or actually ANYTHING) in the house

Anyway… it’s just a matter of DAYS before I get away from having to live with them and they become someone ELSE’s problem.

ALMOST DIVORCED!

After 2.5 years away from theEx, I have FINALLY signed the affidavit for dissolution of marriage. According to the MoronLawyer, now it goes to HIS lawyer and then to the Court of Queen’s Bench. Depending on how busy the courts are, and how many holidays fall in the middle of the process, it could be anywhere from 4-6 more weeks before I am finally granted the certificate of divorce.

It was an expensive milestone, but I needed to be free from ties to him.

My own STYLE

With my own home comes the ability to decorate in my OWN style. Sure it will be a while before I will be able to afford to replace my living room furniture, but over time I will be making my new home MINE.

This is the first time in my life that I will have a space that I don’t need to get permission to do what I want to my own space. I don’t have to be accountable to my parents, a boyfriend, a husband or a landlord!! I can (and will) paint the walls whatever colour I want. I can put down whatever kinds of rugs I want! I can hang up my needlework and my degrees. I get to decide what I want to do, and I get to make it happen… WITHOUT ANYONE ELSE SAYING I CAN’T!

I can (and will) put up an altar. I can do a house blessing. I don’t have to account for ANYONE if I want bright colours or dark colours or even WHITE all over the place. It will be MY place.

It’s the first part of my independence!

Making my friend Sunil come to visit

Yes, I totally intend to make my friend Sunil visit… and help paint things garish colours (and likely help pack a few things, and do a house blessing ) and you know why? Because I have a house!! And because he totally needs to visit and celebrate with me! HOUSE!! YAY!! DIVORCE (almost)!! YAY!! BEING SINGLE !! YAY!!!

Yes, I like to make up events to make Sunil visit – like throwing myself a baby shower when I had GirlChild and throwing myself a birthday party when I turned 35 – maybe its kinda sad that I throw so many parties FOR myself??

 Whatever.

Being SINGLE and LOVING it!!

It has been about 3 weeks since the breakup with R and I feel like I have really blossomed as a single woman.  Other times when I was single I was looking for ways to get into another relationship. Yes, there are certain benefits to being in a relationship (*ahem* you know what they are… but also having someone to lift heavy stuff for you or get things off the top of things is good… and killing big bugs), but I am starting to realize that I am fine alone.

I am actually LESS lonely now than I was when I was with R. And that is how I know that the relationship wasn’t really meant to go any farther than it did.

More amazing to me is that I am not really that interested in trolling more dating websites and trying to find “Mr Right” through online chat sessions. Not right now, anyway. I might go back to wanting to find someone to go on dates with or talk to on the phone, or to share special events with… but that’s a someday kinda thing. Because when I seek again I will be looking for someone who gets ME and who will treat me RIGHT and not just whomever will take me without too much whining complaints.

I am happy to be alone right now. I can make a mess doing my scrapbooking thing if I want to. I can spend hours doing needlework WITHOUT having to watch football. I can try out new recipes. I can WRITE. I can explore my spirituality. I can learn to love the ME that is ME.

And I am gonna give MYSELF and MY KIDS a special valentine’s day – I’m gonna make chocolate pancakes with strawberries (for them, because, dudes I can’t do chocolate before NOON) and maybe we’ll go see a movie after dance class (well… after SUPPER after dance class, because I don’t want to fill them up with junk ALL day)…  I am hoping we get some packing and cleaning done as well… but I think that this is something WE need to do as a family.

I know that when I do start to seek love again I will have a MUCH different attitude about how I want to be treated and a MUCH lower threshold for “men behaving badly”…

CHANGE IS GOOD

I think if I keep saying this to myself I might come to believe it (laugh). But I know that this time it is true… this change will be for the better and the stress will be totally worth it, if I can just keep it together for another few weeks.  

I will be getting my OWN internet (connection) and a home phone (part of a deal to try it out for 3 months) and that will be different. I haven’t had a home phone system for 2.5 years… and I have gotten used to not being able to call anyone outside of my city. And to have a (sorta) phone line for even 3 months with UNLIMITED long distance will feel SO good! I can CALL people and not worry that my cell bill will be astronomical… Don’t know if I will KEEP it though.

Part of the plan is also a free 3 month trial of cable tv. Which is odd because I am also keeping my satellite tv system (rather than paying $200 to cancel it with a month remaining) and a PVR rental system. I have 3 months to see which system I prefer, satellite or cable, and then cancel the other… and make any changes to my existing internet and phone systems as well…  

But I will need a phone handset AND a wireless router.

Oh, and curtains

That is all