It's my party and I'll cry if I want to!

Well today is my 52nd birthday.

I think birthdays are a time for reflection and for weighing up the trials and tribulations of the past year.  This is the first birthday I have spent with any family for... let me see... last two years on the island with TexLOML...  2011 in Fort Worth TX with two virtual strangers... 2010 YES  in 2010 The Boy was with me and we were with another stranger in Northern California...  Of course there are a long run of birthdays where I have had the pleasure of The Boy's company but I think I have to go back to my 44th in 2006 to find any other family...  In 2006 I celebrated in St Paul Minnesota with heaps of my fabulous MN friends and my mother and my Gay Brother were in the US visiting me.

8 years since I had a family birthday...

Today I am going to have a party here at Str8 Brother and SIL's (sister-in-law) place.  My Str8 Brother called me a couple of weeks ago, when I was in Sydney, and asked what my favourite roast is... naturally I replied "Roast pork with lots of crackling!!!" and then he asked my fave dessert and I said Pavlova... now Str8 Bro doesn't have an oven so I said I would make the Pav at Gay Brother's place the day before.  Gay Brother is invited to my birthday and had accepted the invitation.  Here is where things get a little weird... I must declare that this is only my truth and that I'm sure others have different points of view...

OK so nearly 3 weeks ago these plans were made.  On Tuesday (the party is on Sunday) I called my Gay Brother and left a message asking if it was ok for me to come over Saturday arvo to make a Pav for Sunday and would it be alright if I had a bath while I was there (the last time I saw him I had asked about coming over occasionally for a bath and had been told it was fine.) Gay Bro called back but called Str8 Bro not me (said he didn't have my number)...  I spoke to him and he said he had people visiting for the weekend and that it wasn't convenient for me to use the oven or the bath.  I said "oh, ok that's fine" and then he said something about not being able to come on Sunday to the birthday lunch...  I was not a party to these arrangements and so I handed the phone back to Str8 Brother.  At this point I could see that my Str8 Brother was getting pissed off as he had made the arrangement a few weeks before and I started to have galloping anxiety at the idea of there being a conflict over my birthday.  Well Str8 Brother was fabulous on the phone while Gay Brother was heard (without speaker phone) yelling things about me "swanning back" into his life and expecting everyone to accommodate me (words to that effect).  My anxiety went through the roof.  Long story slightly shorter is that Gay Brother seems incredibly pissed off with me and isn't coming to lunch.

The next day I thought I should try to talk to Gay Brother and see what is the matter.  I popped into his work just before closing time and asked if he might come for a quick drink with me.  I was calm and kept my voice low but my Gay Brother was not.  After an exchange in which he told me he has a nice quiet little life and he doesn't want me intruding on it, and that calling and leaving the message about the pav was an intrusion.  He made it clear he has no room in his life for me.  He then demanded that I leave the office (I think he was struggling to keep his voice low and his anger in check.)

I came home to Str8 and SIL and I was very upset... I have no idea what I have done to make him so angry or to become an "intrusion" on his life.  The last time I saw him before moving back here was when I was on the way up the coast with TexLOML and we had a nice overnight visit.  Nothing horrible has happened in between... Anyway, I can't change anyone but myself, so sitting talking with SIL we decided that we would change the party from a small immediate family lunch to a big BBQ sausage sizzle with our Koori cousins and any assorted friends and relatives and some wonderful old friends of mine who are Koori girls too.

We won't be skulking around mourning the fact that Gay Brother is acting like brat, we won't be just 4 of us sitting around with long faces, we will be 10 or 15 adults and dozens of kids laughing and having a terrific time!  Bring on the good times!

(If Gay Brother decides to pop by and grace us with a few minutes of his time he will get rather a shock I suspect!)

Self Delusions of Good and Evil

I have been going through a VERY interesting period of my life lately.  A good phase I believe for the most part.

Let me catch up from where I was on the last post where I was embarking on a course of hypnotherapy...

It turns out that I am NOT one of the people who is capable of relaxing enough to become hypnotized no matter how hard I try.  My busy busy brain manages to turn attempts to relax into yet another situation for anxiety to manifest...  Let me give you an example... the therapist is saying,
"focus on your toes and let your toes relax" and my brain is saying
"NO not ankles and feet TOES ... think about relaxing your TOES"
she says,
"you are in a beautiful garden" and I tell myself
"a garden a garden... NO not a porch, not a farm... a GARDEN dammit!"
etc etc I was so self critical, and beating myself up the whole time, and I could never really relax.  I was completely hopeless at it!  So my therapy sessions became an opportunity to self reflect and talk over the things with which I was dealing.  (that sentence is for my grammar nazi followers :) )  At first I needed to discuss the pros and cons of leaving the island and moving back to the town in NSW where I lived 15 years ago.  Both of my brothers live there and it also puts me only about 5 hours drive from The Boy.  Once that decision was finally made (a long story in itself) I began to use the sessions to work through the idea of re-immersing in the family dynamic.  Not something I approached lightly as my rather dysfunctional family has been at odds in various configurations throughout my life.  I also talked at length about dealing with someone who has been the cause of terrible trauma and anxiety in my life and who, arguably, has been the primary contributor to my having developed this bloody revolting, anxiety driven, she-devil bitch of a condition.  My hypnotherapist has become my friend and confidant.  She was a wonderful support to me in my last couple of weeks on the island and I'm really glad in some ways that the hypnotherapy didn't work because the alternative did!

It's interesting that when I was a child and I was exposed to an extreme level of volatility and quite frequent unexpected violence - when there was nothing I could do right and no way I could make logic when dealing with a fundamentally illogical, frequently paranoid, and highly explosive adult - I really seemed to not take it on board in my day to day life.  I was frightened and anxious when in her company and yet when thinking about my life I always thought it was wonderful - I was in some kind of denial that had emerged from my mother's Pollyanna attitude and from so constantly being told how fortunate I was.  So if asked, up to about the age of 40, I would always reply that I had enjoyed a charmed childhood; yes I had to deal with one crazy person but otherwise it was wonderful.  While this is true it is also seriously downplaying the crazy person and completely ignoring the impact that exposure has had on my psyche.  I thought I was fine!

I wasn't fine.  I was anxiety driven and desperate to please people who were never pleased by anything I did or said.  I was beating my head, and every other part of my body, against an immovable object.  I was imbued with an almost desperate desire to please, and a caustic and destructive leaning towards self criticism.  I was raised by a stoic and taught to suck it up and move forward and that's what I did!

I feel like an idiot that it has taken me so long to recognize the actual root of some of my issues.  I have a version of PTSD from the volatility and violence that occurred in my childhood.  I have serious issues about not being protected by the person who one would normally expect to protect a child.  I'm desperately critical of myself as a failure when my intelligent, adult mind, knows, for a fact, that no success would ever have been acknowledged and that no achievement would have been enough.

The long and the short of it is that lots of my crap was caused by childhood trauma and lots of my bad relationship decisions of my adulthood have been attempts to replay those situations and have a different outcome.  Unfortunately I was VERY slow to realize that logic doesn't work with histrionic crazy women!  Now I need to make it very clear that none of this has to do with my brothers or my mother.

An interesting thing happened when I was packed and ready to leave the island... my brother, let's just call him The Str8 One, and I were on the phone and I was telling him that my truck was so overloaded that I was concerned I might break a spring in a pothole on the way down the coast and he said something that very nearly brought tears to my eyes... he said "Geeze I'll have to borrow the money [from our brother] to come up with the trailer and get your stuff!"  I was overcome by this because for fifteen years I have had no one who would come and rescue me if I had a problem... the mere idea that someone would drive 1000 kms or more to help was mind-blowing to me!  When I rolled my Jeep on the way to Fargo and The Boy and I were hanging upside down in our seat belts I just handled it; cops, tow truck, motel, insurance, car hire, etc etc.  When my basement flooded I handled it; move stuff, rent pump, clean up etc etc.  When an ear infection was making me throw up and possibly eating through to my brain I took myself to hospital.  I have moved myself in the last 10 years, in my own vehicle, usually alone, or with The Boy, about 15 times for a total of something like 14,000 kilometres - with my possessions on my back I have traveled the same distance as from New York to Los Angeles and back three and a half times!  This does not include the move from the US back to Australia - also alone.  There has been precious little rescuing going on in my life for a long time!  I felt so warmed by his response - so hopeful for our future.

The move away from the island is worthy of its own blog - it was a monster!  A story for another time :)

This blog is about huge changes and huge self-revelations.  Wonderful things are happening in my life.  I feel like I'm part of a family again.  My brother and sister-in-law have been incredible and it feels so warm and hopeful.  I feel like I'm becoming more aware of my own influences and of just how much my physical problems have been precipitated by my anxiety and PTSD.  It really is such an obvious sequence.  The  Professor I saw at the Pain Clinic, back when I first started this blog, prescribed a low stress life and the wearing of sensible shoes.  I have the shoe part covered and now maybe I can really work on the life part!

Life, Health, Family and Hypnosis - Can I be helped?

Well I've been meaning to write for a while but like everything else in my life I haven't been able to get around to it...  Those Round Tuits are hard to come by!

Since Christmas, when I had a wonderful talk with my family, I have been thinking of moving back to the NSW Mid North Coast.  It would put me within a half days drive of The Boy and I would be close to my brothers, their partners, my nephew and some old friends.  I'm still glad I didn't move there when TexLOML and I bit the dust.  At that time I was down and needy and it would have been fraught with unreasonable expectations.  Like running home to Mum when Mum is long gone.  Now at least I know I can survive on my own - maybe not thrive but at least survive.

I've been in a bit of a hole lately.  TexLOML has begun a new "thing" with her ex,  I wish her only the best but that doesn't mean it isn't hard.  She's putting pressure on me to get the rest of my stored crap out from under her house and quite frankly at the moment it is hard enough for me to get out of bed.  The meds I have been taking for diabetes make me nauseous and I am so monumentally demotivated that it's hard to describe.  Well, to borrow something I saw on Facebook, "You can't imagine the enormity of the fuck I don't give".  It's hard finding motivation when you feel like shit.

Over the last few weeks I have come to the conclusion that I just don't care enough about myself to take care of myself.  Thank Herbert that I care enough for the dog to feed her and take her for a walk every day because if it weren't for her I probably would never leave my bedroom other than to go to the bathroom!  When I was with TexLOML I used to live by her work schedule.  Every weekday afternoon when it edged towards to her coming home time I would jump up and do all the things I wanted to accomplish that day.  I'd clean, fix stuff, wash etc and often get dinner on.  I find that, for myself, I really can't be bothered doing anything and I should bother!

I should be worth bothering about - I should be a good enough reason to cook decent food and get some exercise - I should value myself enough to try and live a healthy life - even to get up out of my bed and do things.  But I don't care about myself.

Soooo I started wondering if maybe I could do something about myself so that by the time my lease is up (mid May) I will be fitter and healthier and maybe able to embrace a better lifestyle.  I could move back to NSW in good shape.  Then I started to wonder if maybe a hypnotherapist could help me to find some drive and motivation... maybe help me to see myself as valuable enough to take care of.

Tomorrow I have my first session.  I'm worried about my ability to be hypnotized and I'm worried about whether it will work or not...  I'm worried about releasing control...  I did some research about how to get the most out of hypnosis and the bottom line seems to be that I need to relax and when I start to get analytical I need to release that and go with the flow. I need to trust the process.  I am determined to give it the best shot possible.

It isn't easy living life with a chronic condition that will probably never go away, it isn't easy being in pain, it isn't easy contemplating (or doing) exercise when you know it will make your pain worse.  Yet these are also excuses and cop outs...  I manage to rise above my condition in many ways and I need to rise above it here too.

Once about 10 years ago I tried hypnotherapy to give up smoking and I didn't think I was ever actually in a trance state and I wanted a cigarette the moment I left the place!  But I didn't really want to give up smoking and I really do want to change my diet and exercise attitudes.  I really do want to value myself more and think I am worth it.  I'd really like to have a positive outcome.

So here goes.  Wish me luck!

Just in case anyone out there is having the same problem I am here is a gift for you!

Am a I contrarian or just weird?

I'm having a quiet day at home today; playing on the computer and waiting for some packages to be delivered.  It means that I am engaging in more discussions in the various Facebook groups of which I am a member and over and over I find myself taking a position different from the majority of other respondents.

Here's an example - A woman asked advice regarding a person she was dating who texted that she might be going to prison... this in the US...  Comment after comment said "RUN" and I agree that will probably be the most appropriate course of action but I just can't help writing about how harsh the justice system can be in the US, and that there may be extenuating circumstances, and that everyone would have responded differently if the post had come from the woman who might be going to prison, in the form of something like "I might have to go to prison soon because on top of having made some bad mistakes when I was a kid I also got caught shoplifting at Walmart last year when I lost my job and had no money for food for the kids."   I really struggle with blanket assumptions and snap judgments... in fact I struggle with judgments in most forms.  I just think things aren't black and white and that the shades of grey really deserve our attention too.  I can't get away from the idea that there but for the grace of Herbert go I.  Who hasn't done stupid things and had a lucky escape?  I know I have.  I think I have written before about stones and the sayings about people in glass houses and also people without sin...

I have never, in my life, felt like I fitted in anywhere.  Just briefly in the mid to late 80's when I had a fairly good collection of lesbian friends I thought maybe I had found my place but over time it dawned on me that a shared sexual orientation is NOT sufficient reason to be friends.  At school I was tormented in spite of my greatest efforts to fit in and be like the girls around me.  I was emotionally and physically attacked repeatedly without fighting back.  My mother subscribed to the theory that you "Never let them know they have hurt you.  Don't give them the satisfaction." and I tried very hard to live by that advice but I am not made of the same stern stuff as my mother, I'm just too easily wounded.  Ultimately I realized that my mother was wrong because when the girls saw that they had hurt me they backed off.  I even had a very strange experience where I overheard one of my tormentors, who had been picked on that day, asking a teacher "Why can't I be more like Displaced, she never lets them hurt her?"  It was a surreal experience sitting silent in a toilet cubicle while this girl cried to our teacher.  She never knew I overheard that and she never knew just how much their taunts and jabs had hurt me.  My school days were spent with an odd collection of other misfits who were not like me but who also wanted to have friends even though we shared little except our exclusion from the other cliques.  It wasn't until the last year or so of school that I became friends with "The Best Friend" and started to gain a little acceptance from the maturing "popular girls".  TexLOML was there then and used to say that one of the things she liked about me is that I was "quirky".  Of course I didn't know that until we got together.

I'm not a "girly girl" and I don't fit really well with women who are straight...  I'm not really butch or femme and I struggle with fitting in with lesbians...  Men seem a little distant, I'm not femmy enough for most gay men and I'm a bit challenging for most straight men.  I'm, as I said in a recent Facebook post, a butch handy princess.

This island, where I live, has been described as the place where people who can't deal with the real world come.  That is a harsh and broad description (though there are a lot of people here with mental health issues - of whom, in the broadest sense, I am one).  I would prefer to say that it is a colony made up of a larger percentage of odds and sods than most places.  This means it is a bit of an echo of my group of misfit friends from school.  The people here are mostly accepting of difference, and friendly, but that only goes so far and really being part of any of the circles takes a LONG time!

I think everyone likes to think they are unique and different.  I can look at the most "ordinary" or "normal" person and they themselves will say that they are "crazy" or "odd".  Maybe it is just part of the human condition to see our own eccentricity and individualism as bizarre or extraordinary?  Maybe in this way I am EXACTLY like the other lemmings?  Yet still I never fit.  I don't even fit in with my family!  I don't know whether there is anything to be said for star signs or not but I do know that I find Sagittarians wonderful and scary and that I have been surrounded by them all my life...  My mother, one brother, my step-mother and step-sister, my sister-in-law, The Boy's father, my grand-father... this in a very small family!  They have cropped up with monotonous regularity in my friendships and even once as a lover.  The Boy is a Leo which is not very different.  My family is full of charming, tactless, people who stomp unwittingly all over my poor, vulnerable, little Cancer heart.  I know that my lesson in life is something that I need to learn from the Sags otherwise why would so many be in my path?

This is probably all on my mind because I have been a little lonely lately.  Not much has been happening in my social life while others are "so busy!" including TexLOML.  She and I are back on good terms (thank Herbert) but she's still not ready for us to hang out together or for me to be included in her social engagements.  Since Mah Jong on Wednesday night I have been home alone every evening (it is now Monday).  I don't mind my own company but it isn't good for me to have too much time hiding in my cave (with the air-con on costing a fortune I bet!).  I have really put it out there that I want to be more social and there isn't much else I can do short of approaching strangers and asking if they want to have a drink with me LOL.  I don't work so the impact of all this solitude is amplified.  I am thinking I might do some volunteer work...  I just need to think about that idea for a bit longer before I will move on it.  Another reason this might be exaggerated is that I have pretty much furnished the house and also run out of money so I am not getting that shopping therapy I was accessing for a few weeks.

Back to the initial point...  I'm really not sure why I have to clang a note so different from the herd...  It might have something to do with not being very black and white about things.  I always see so many simultaneous sides to every issue... It must make me look wishy washy but I'm not really indecisive or vague...  I just always want to give people the benefit of the doubt.

Except right wing politicians, religious extremists, and corporate rapists they get no leeway!

Who's looking at the moon?

Well, I haven't blogged for a few days for a couple of reasons; firstly because some of the things I said in an earlier blog upset TexLOML and so I needed to make an apology and a retraction; and secondly because I have been busier than a one legged bloke in an arse kicking competition! Wednesday was the day I got the keys for the new place and I tried to get the bulk of the moving done then with the much appreciated assistance of TexLOML's younger son (he's a bloody good kid!). I only had him after school so I was packing and moving smaller things until he got home. It was VERY sad and I was extremely upset. Aside from the projectile sweating I have developed since my hysterectomy a few months ago I was also leaking copious quantities of salty fluid from my eyes that day. None of this was helped by having woken up that morning with a cold (to add to the nausea I've been having for the last few weeks from some new meds.) All in all I was a leaking, damp, sweaty mess! (Am I turning you on yet? LOL). Thursday was more of the same with the added pleasure of screaming muscles and the subtracted dampness of buckets of tears.

On Friday morning I just couldn't do it any more. I had made a commitment to TexLOML's cousin (she and her husband are two of my favourite people on the island) to film her working with her new guide dog. An early rise was required (to get it done before it got too hot), and that accomplished, they took me out to breakfast. I had gorgeous Eggs Benedict but unfortunately couldn't keep it down so it was followed by an hour or so of wretched vomiting and another couple of hours of queasy. Oh my Herbert I hate being queasy!!! I felt so blah I popped into the medical centre and saw The Nurse. This was great because I had been having pity party paranoia that she wasn't going to be my friend any more and though we barely brushed anything personal I did feel reassured. It was also great cause she gave me something to relieve the nausea. I took it easy for the rest of Friday and even went to a friend's place to have a bath. It was glorious!!! She gave me some coconut bath salts that left me smelling like a pina colada! Thanks mate – if you're reading this!

That night was another friend's 40^th birthday and there was a big “Drag Queen” party. Though I had considered frocking up for the occasion I ended up going as The Man In Black – Johnny Cash. Black jeans, black boots with silver studded boot keepers, big silver belt buckle, black silk shirt and a black leather vest. I had my black cowboy hat on but it was too damn hot so I left it in the truck. Unfortunately I don't have anywhere to leave Frizby at the moment. She had only been in the new house two nights, has been very confused and anxious because of all our recent moves, and her separation anxiety is galloping faster than Fiorente (the Melbourne Cup Winner). If I am in the shower she is on the bathmat, if I am in the toilet she is at my feet, she never ventures far from my side at the moment (if there was a seagull to chase she might manage to stretch the umbilical cord!) TexLOML has asked me not to leave her at her house any more so my choices are zip for the time being. I thought I would take her to the party and leave her in the truck but she cried and barked too much and so she ended up sitting at my feet on the outskirts of the party. I wasn't feeling all that good (just for a bloody change) and so I was very content to sit in the back blocks with Frizz and watch the weird sights parade past :) Although I left early it was a terrific party and I'm glad I got to be there for a while.

So today, still feeling like warmed over death, I set about editing the videos I had made the day before and then popped them off to cuz and her hubby. Frizzy was great with their guide dog (finally a dominant bitch who puts Frizzle right in her place without eating her) so that was a nice visit. Then I did some shopping and came home for a rest. One of the things I bought was a mop and so when I had cooled down in the cave (that is my front bedroom with the curtains drawn and the air con on) I tackled mopping the living room and wiping down the new dining chairs. Oh boy it really hadn't cooled down much and in no time I was wetter than the mop. Then after dinner, and a break, I took the Frizz to the beach for a walk right after dusk... hooley dooley what a moon! This kind of evening, this kind of sight, is what makes 'tropical paradise' paradise. The sea breeze was gentle and cool and the moon was glistening across the water like a carpet of lustrous pearls. Frizby was happy to be free and dashed away from me and back again over and over working off some energy and I felt a peace that has been absent for a while.

I nicked the pic but it does the trick.

I don't think people in my past have believed me when I told them I would love them forever. But I still do love them. Even some disastrous relationships with abusive or litigious partners were not without their redeeming features. There are things you love about a person and I don't really understand how that goes away. I know the 'in love' part goes, I know that anger can bury or conceal the 'love' part, but there is no one I have loved who didn't have lovable qualities. That sense just doesn't turn off for me. So I wondered where people were and who might also be looking at that glorious moon and I thought how very wonderful Herbert is for making such a thing ours for eternity. It's funny, a bit like love, my seeing and loving the moon doesn't take anything away from anyone else seeing it too – it's enforced sharing – it belongs to everyone and to no one – it is immeasurably valuable. We spend our lives looking for control but the moon is something that controls us... Our watery substance shifts with it like the tides and our souls are nourished by its glow. Frizz ran like a lunatic (by etymology, one affected by the moon) and I strolled like the typical little cancer moon child that I am.

More cleaning and sorting tomorrow and then more moving again on Monday!

I am getting there …. wherever 'there' is...

On the eve...

Well today is the 12th of November and as such it is a multi anniversary.

It is the anniversary of the first day TexLOML and I reconnected after 31 years of no contact and that day 2 years ago was the beginning of my current adventure.

It is also the 1 month anniversary of the day TexLOML asked me to leave.

Furthermore it is the day before I move into my new unit.

Tomorrow I pick up the keys of the new place and start (probably finish) moving my stuff.  There isn't all that much although I have, in the last week, acquired a bed base and a bed frame, a so so mattress that I will probably put in the spare room, a coffee table, 8 dining room chairs and a washing machine - grand total of expenditure $200.  Not bad eh?  I went over today and signed all the papers except the final lease and in the morning I pick up the keys.

Today I also dragged my 'project boat' down to the main street and put a "For Sale" sign on it and believe it or not it sold within 2 hours.  It isn't much but it is more than I paid for it (unless I count the barge charges to bring it to the island and the diesel for the drive to get it in which case I have lost about $100).  I am also considering selling my 8 hp auxiliary motor but I am less sure of that.  I might still want to get a dinghy and put that motor on it.

I tried to explain to Frizby that it is our last night in this house and that when we move tomorrow THAT will be it (at least for 6 months)... I'm not sure she understands in spite of her sincere and adoring gaze, into my eyes, as I spoke.

Today is also TexLOML's birthday and I called her early this morning (when she should have been up getting ready for work) and sang "Happy Birthday" into the answering machine... there has been no response.  My steady, dependable, friend, who owns the place where I have been staying for the last week has taken off camping so I spent the evening alone wondering what TexLOML and all of "our" friends were doing tonight.  A stupid, wasteful use of my mental attention.  I can't say the tune to "Eleanor Rigby" hasn't run through my head a time or two.

I've arranged for TexLOML's son to help me carry the few things that are heavy tomorrow afternoon and although I am ok with it running to a second day I think I can probably move nearly everything tomorrow.  I tried to get another helper to lend some muscle but to no avail - maybe her son can rustle up a mate for half an hour?

I feel strange; excited and uncomfortable, fearful and liberated, positive and alarmed...  It strikes me that over the last month I have repeatedly developed a comfort zone only to have to leave it and face the unknown again.  In truth that has been the nature of my life for the last 9 years with an off-kilter acceleration five years ago when my mum died.  I have run from false "safe haven" to false "safe haven" without finding any security.  Here I am finally facing the simple fact that the only person I can depend upon is myself.  I'm not sure if you have any idea how terrifying this idea is to me.  I can't say I have hit rock bottom because I still had a roof over my head, I may have been packing and repacking, over and over, but I haven't been sleeping on the beach or in my car.  I wonder if my health will improve with this transition?  I wonder if self-determination impacts significantly on stress and ergo health?

Well I have had a few glasses of wine and taken my nightly meds and I think it's time to retire to a book and hope that someone else's world can capture my attention.

I would love to hear you thoughts!

MAJOR EDIT/ RETRACTION Good with the bad

IT HAS BEEN BROUGHT TO MY ATTENTION THAT THIS BLOG CAST TexLOML IN AN UNFAIR AND BAD LIGHT SO I AM MAKING SOME CORRECTIONS... PLEASE READ CAPS AS NEW INFO.

It's a beautiful Saturday morning here in the tropics and I thought I might take this opportunity to update my blog!

Though Garrison Keillor would say “It was a quiet week in Lake Woebegon” I would say it has been an interesting week in paradise. Do you want the good news or the bad news first?

Actually my mother always said it's an ill wind that doesn't blow some good so I will start with something that has been both good and bad. I missed out on the unit I had chosen to apply for first. I needed them to accept $10 per week less in rent and they refused. The up side of this is that it set me free to make a confirmed decision that I would take the other one. So now I have a place to move into next Wednesday and I can begin (and have begun) my path towards making my home the way I want it to be.

The unit is large and cool and made of concrete blocks that feel safe in this tropical cyclone prone area. It has a big kitchen that actually has all the things one would expect to find in a real kitchen – like a stove, a sink and cupboards. 

The kitchen from the dining space.

Across living towards kitchen window

 This sounds basic but to be honest I have looked at many places that lack complete proper kitchens. Since this decision has been made I have acquired 8 second hand dining room chairs (from a garage sale) and a set of crockery and a quilt cover from a thrift shop.

The chairs look a bit like this are are really comfy!

The process of nesting has begun!

The bad news is that TexLOML and I had another disagreement – this time via text. I had to move from one place (where the owner was coming home from overseas) and being that the new place is not ready yet I needed to stay somewhere else for a week. It is my great good fortune (good news inside the bad) that I have a steady, dependable, caring friend who will not turn me away – the difficult part is that she has a cat and the Frizz is NOT good with pushy cats. So I sent TexLOML a text asking if I could stay the week at her house in the spare room and use the week to pack my stuff and she said no...  I asked, then, if Frizby could stay with TexLOML for the week and she said no (IN ACTUAL FACT SHE EXPRESSED A DESIRE NOT TO HAVE FRIZZY BUT DIDN'T ACTUALLY SAY "no" SHE PARTICULARLY ASKED THAT I TRY HAVING FRIZZY AT THE OTHER PLACE AND IF IT DIDN'T WORK WE COULD RECONSIDER)... Time for another suggestion … How about TexLOML stays with a friend and I stay at her house, pack and take care of both the dogs (this is what I did when I broke up with a girlfriend who needed to move out of my home many years ago – I stayed with my mum while she moved out)... No TexLOML is not going to stay anywhere else.  (TexLOML FOUND THIS SUGGESTION EXTREME AND UNREASONABLE - MY THEORY AT THE TIME WAS THAT IT MIGHT MAKE HER RECONSIDER ONE OF THE FIRST TWO SUGGESTIONS.)  At this point I was becoming quite upset and feeling angry that she won't take even a single step out of her way to make this easier for me so I discontinued the conversation. More good news amongst the bad is that a friend happened to be there just after this occurred and talked me through the emotions. She wisely said that pushing harder could only cause a major rift. This very definitely helped me to calm down and begin the process of letting go of my hurt and anger. There is just nothing to be achieved by fighting with TexLOML, no one would win (certainly not me) and as she pointed out in our last altercation this is a small island. – Too busy to dwell on my injured little feelings I needed to find a way to make staying with my cat owning friend acceptable.  (HERE I PROBABLY MISREPRESENTED AS THERE WAS A PLAN ALREADY SUGGESTED BY MY FRIEND THE POINT I WAS MAKING IS THAT HER PLAN WAS DIFFICULT FOR ME AS IT INVOLVED CARRYING MY LITTLE NUGGET  UP AND DOWN THE STAIRS TO AND FROM MY ROOM)  This we have done with a baby gate and my agreement that Frizzle will only be carried upstairs to the bedroom and won't invade the cat's space. So no thanks to TexLOML I do still have a roof over my head for this week.  (THIS STATEMENT IS INFLAMMATORY AND CAME FROM MY PLACE OF HURT AND ANGER AS THERE NEVER REALLY WAS A CHANCE THAT I DIDN'T HAVE SOMEWHERE TO STAY.)

More bad is that I haven't been able to sleep lately and anyone with FMS knows that lack of sleep contributes to a rather unpleasant cycle that results in nasty flare ups. I can't sleep → Increased anxiety and fatigue → Increased pain → Harder to sleep etc etc ad infinitum. So yesterday after three nights with less than 3 hours sleep I had to get up early to go across on the ferry to the mainland to see the Dept of Housing. Good news in the bad is that the appointment was less than an hour. Bad news again is that I had to stay all day in town (with nowhere to go and have a rest) because I was going to a function in town last night. I proceeded to spend the bulk of the day in furniture shops testing beds!!! I got to be horizontal (a desperate need for my body) and to exercise as well with all the sit-ups I did moving from one bed to another! I wasn't totally wasting the time of the sales staff because I do need to buy a new bed and I'm pretty certain that it is something I am going to make a significant investment in because I spend a LOT of time in bed.

The good news – I went to the function last night – it was a Trivia Night to raise money for the local Conservation Council and therefore was packed with wonderful, left/green minded people, some of whom I had met before and many of whom could be future friends for me. I sat at a table with four women I knew slightly and one I had just met and we had a great time! At one point I told the table that I had found a new place and when I told them which street it is on the couple I was sitting with exclaimed that they live in the same street. My steady cat-owning friend has also mentioned that there is a woman who lives in that street that she thinks I might get on with also so it might just be that I am heading into the perfect property!

More good news is that – through sheer exhaustion I had about 6 hours sleep last night and though I am far from refreshed it was a blessing from Herbert. Up early this morning and off to the garage sale where I bought the chairs.

There you go – progress is wonderful.

Just a small footnote – I had a comment on my last blog from a stranger on the other side of the world and she told me that my earlier blogs had helped her through the early stages of her illness. I went looking for a quote to express how that made me feel and was unable to find one so I made one up.

“Hearing I made a difference to you has made an enormous difference to me.”