Category Archives: Dealing with Adversity

A Glass of Wine is on the Table

Posted on by learning to live like water

I’m having a glass of wine tonight. The tank is going to cost me over $2,300. It’s something called an indirect heater, which is, per the plumber who was just here, “High-end.” I could get a whole  electric hot water heater for less than $1500, but I don’t know if I have to replace the leaking tank with what’s there. Holy shit. $2300. And I will be here for 7 more weeks.

Son of a bitch.

So I’m out in my sacred space, drinking, cooking dinner in the microwave. I texted my realtor and asked her if I can’t just put in a regular hot water heater and save $800. I have not heard yet. I mean, if I have to replace this one, I have to. I am not gonna break the contract over $800. But geezus. Flip me the frick out.

And then, there are the ants to deal with. Sigh……Maybe the house is pissed off I’m moving, lol. And I do love this house.

Not stressing, really, just freaked out. I thought it would be way cheaper because it’s not an electric hot water heater. Oh well. I guess I just let it unfold.

I have to go over my 2 quotes for moving and see if I can get a couple more. Make sure I’m comparing apples to apples.

I knew this was gonna get crazy for me, but didn’t think it would be this crazy, lol.

On top of this, I called in my diabetes meds for refills, and the most expensive one is still not covered. My dr is trying to get the insurance co. to make an exception. The assistant thought they had, but was supposed to call me back and didn’t. So I will have to go without until I get to their office and get free samples, because it’s $400 a month, just that one. It helped me lose 20 lbs, and keeps my glucose levels really decent. So maybe they got it covered, idk. I spent my lunch hour on the phone with the pharmacy and the dr’s office. That was fun. But the assistant I talked to is pretty sure they got the exception through. And they also can give me free samples to get by til the exception is through.

American health care is so f’d up. And this is supplemental Medicare insurance.

Whatever.

I’m alive, I am happy, basically. I’m moving to somewhere where I’ll never deal with winter again, and all my peeps will come to see me. Where I’ll never be cold again, never shovel snow again. Never wear gloves again. And I won’t have to work so damn hard, so many long hours, and carry so much responsibility. Like my bff said to me this am, just remember in 2 months you won’t have any debt.

Sigh……. that fact makes me want to lay in the breeze and feel the wind on my skin, lol.

So if it does in fact cost me an extra $3000, it’s worth it. I will make it back somehow. The plan is still perfect.

Love and light…..

Not Stressing, I’m NOT Stressing. Am I?

Posted on by learning to live like water

I was up at 4:45 this morning.  Transferring money around so I can pay for the dang hot water tank.  Then trying to get estimates on replacing it.  Then thinking about all the other crap I have to do in a relatively short time.

I also got, as part of the inspection, a pest control report that said I have carpenter ants and that they could treat them for $350.  I was like maybe some cans of Raid?  Geezus.  And I know the buyers will want a licensed company to do the work.  Maybe I can trade my snow blower and just let them do it.  Or the couches in my sons room.  Something.  Geezus, I don’t want to spend that kind of money.  The ants only appeared this year, like one or two a day I see.  $350?  Cripes.

But I’m not going to stress.  I am going to have to take a day or two off of work to get this crap done though.  I still have to go over my moving estimates and get that squared away.

I need to make a list, a long list, lol, so I don’t find myself at the end of the 6 weeks, trying to deal with something major.

But as I said to my bff this morning, not gonna get to worked up.  Life has thrown me much harder curves than this, and I am still here.  At the end of the day, or 2 months from now, I’ll be on the beach in Florida with a cold drink, and the hot water tank and the ants will be a memory.

Love and light.

Sunday Thoughts

Posted on by learning to live like water

challenges

The weather here has retreated back to winter for a few days.  An Alberta Clipper dumped a few inches of snow on us in a very short time this morning, and now has stopped.  Yesterday it was warm and rainy, typical spring weather.  Like me, the weather can’t quite let go of the past, yet, knows that the best is yet to come. 

Still, I know that the past is not what I want. And the future is so bright, right now.

I had a hard time getting to sleep last night. Well…not getting to sleep, staying asleep. I think, left-over emotions from Maggie’s passing. She was the first living being that I have stood by, watching as she left this world little by little. Letting her go, little by little. And grateful, when her time came, that she was no longer in pain. Grateful that she had been in my life for these last 8 ½ years, to comfort me when I most needed it, to love me when the darkness came, when the fear for and missing of my son overwhelmed me. When the illusion of being loved was no longer an option. When the person who loved me the best, the most, the longest, the purest, left this world.

Honestly, she would hear me cry, and hop up on the bed, and lay on the pillow next to me, resting herself on my arm, or hand, purring loudly. She was my constant companion, where I was, she was. When she heard my mediation music go on in the morning, she would jump up on the couch, walk around me, rub her head against my cheek, and lay down beside me purring, as I drifted into the space between the words. She always greeted me by the door when I came home, having been alerted that I was home by the garage door opening. It will take me some time not to be looking for her to race up the stairs ahead of me, and then sit in the bathroom, waiting for me to turn on the water in the sink for her drink.

Watching her slide into the void, sharing that experience with her, felt like an honor. She was here, she slowly drifted away. She seemed afraid in moments, she was calmed by my voice and my hand petting her head gently. My son too, throughout her last night, came up to check on her often. He brought her food and water bowls in the room where I had made her a bed, he took food out of the bowl and put it by her head, trying to will her to eat a little.

Her loss, brought up the other losses, of the last few months. I work my way through all those emotions, again, and wonder when they will just be memories, and not arouse pain, or longing, or wistfulness. When I will just miss those people, without attachment to their loss. When will all the working through will be done.

I have found that missing someone is easier than losing them. Most of the time, I can miss those who are gone from my life, and it is just an undercurrent of my life. Part of who I am, what makes me the unique person I am. But another loss, makes a new crack, and before the light fills it, the emotions all pour out of the crack, into my heart. When they are done, finished, the light will fill the crack, I will have a greater glow than before.

The people we have loved will always live on in our hearts, they will always have a place there. The energy connections remain, a comforting hum in the cacophonous din of the world.

Love and light….

Gratitude and Release

Posted on by learning to live like water

thankful

I didn’t think I’d sleep last night, but I slept well.  I went to bed and lay under the covers with the kind of chill I get at the gong baths that starts from the inside, my heart and solar plexus chakras, releasing.  I did my gratitude list, I was grateful for my son, my warm bed, my home, my two sisters, my parents, my life.   And then I fell fast asleep.

It did me a lot of good, to speak my mind, to say to him, and to her, what the truth was from my perspective, and demand that I not be made into something I was not.  That my relationship with S not be made into something prurient, and shallow, because it so was not.  Anyone who reads my blogs consistently can see that.

When I was being grateful for all those things, I also was grateful that I am strong enough to stand in my story.  That I could articulate what was true, what was undeniable.  That I didn’t have to sit in the shadows and swallow a lie.  I am so grateful that my life has taught me to stand up for something.  To stand up for myself.  The fact that someone I loved cannot stand up for himself, or me, is his problem.  He will live with that karma.  If she stays with him, she will also have to deal with it.

He has so much fear.  For some reason, he feels that if he admits to caring for me, not even loving me, that it will take something from her.  How silly.  Caring for one person doesn’t negate the love you have for someone else.  She can’t be that jealous, that he couldn’t care for someone else when she wasn’t in his life.

My conscience is clear this morning.  I am ready more than ever to go on my vacation, free of emotional encumbrances that bind me to the past.  I am more ready than ever to make this move for the same reason.

It’s all been hard, so hard.  Some of the hardest shit of my lifetime.  And trust me I’ve been through a lot of shit. It’s not as hard as the problems I had when my ex was trying to keep my son from me, but it’s running a close second.  I trusted my gut now, as I did then, and as I freed him from abuse, I have freed myself from betrayal.

I always have to remember, that everything that happens to us brings us to where we are.  I like where I am, I like who I am.  Therefore, I am grateful for all of it, and all the lessons I was taught.   I also try to remember that many wise people say our purpose in this life is to learn lessons and evolve our souls.  I have felt the power of speaking up for myself, not because of it’s affect on anyone else.  If there is, or isn’t, an affect on anyone else, I likely won’t ever know.  But I feel the power within me, that I loved myself enough not to swallow another lie.  And that’s a wonderful thing to know, that I can do that.

 

Manifesto

Posted on by learning to live like water

I love Brene Brown, as anyone who follows my blog knows.  She is brilliant, and can explain things in very human terms which are easy for us to relate to.  This manifesto is from her book Rising Strong, which has been instrumental in getting me from the weepy, sad, rejected woman I was 6 months ago, to the strong, self assured woman I am, who knows her worth. I’m worth more than I was getting. And I am still not afraid to be vulnerable.

Rising-Strong-Manifesto

 

Mercedes Benz

Posted on by learning to live like water

I’m considering taking my last blog down. I had such a difficult morning emotionally. I had all these memories from my marriage, a difficult night’s sleep with that picture of my son all bruised in my head. Some overwhelming guilt, and it all blended in with S’s recent actions. I don’t think the gray pouring rain day was helping me either.

But anyway, I pushed through all that stuff. I sat with it, which for me means writing about it. So I did, two blogs on all that nasty, abusive stuff that my ex put us through. And one on S. It’s just that I think I’ve maybe over-dissected the thing with S. The outcome will always be the same, he betrayed me yet again. Even if he didn’t say that to her, he said it to me. He thought it. He is an asshole. I am done. I hope I’m done expending any more energy on his loser ass. If he’s sick, I’m sorry. Actually, I mean, sickER because he’s already sick. I am sorry, but I don’t want to know about it. I don’t want to be encumbered by that knowledge.

Tonight I’m in a good place. I am back to my basically happy self. I know I have a really nice life. So many good things are falling into place, and so many bad things are falling by the wayside.

So…I won’t take it down, because it was cathartic to write it. But it was a wave, it was temporary. The real me is back. Don’t read too much into it, it’s just another level of letting go.

In other news, lol, I was sitting at my desk today, and started singing Mercedes Benz by Janis Joplin. One of the other 60-something women I work with sang with me. I decided at that moment I needed that song on my iphone, so I bought it for 99 cents. I need to go back and look again, because there is so much good music by Janis. But I thought I’d put up Mercedes Benz tonight, because….it’s just the way it is sometimes. Love and light all, and enjoy the song. If you don’t know it, you are young it’s short and pretty funny. And true….

Some Tough Memories

Posted on by learning to live like water

bad memoris

I’m afraid my last blog brought up a bunch of memories I’d forgotten, or pushed down, last night.  One in particular, was of my son, not long before I left my marriage.  I walked into his room and he had his shirt off, and was bruised all down his left side.  I gasped and asked him what happened.  He said “oh it was at hockey mom.” and went on to make up some story, which I can’t remember, all I can remember is the mass of purple bruises on his chest.  But I believed him, even though he’d never had any thing like that in all his years of playing.  And it didn’t really make sense, when I thought about it later, a hockey player is well padded from head to toe.  But apparently ignorance was bliss at the time, I was planning my escape, I just accepted it.

A couple years later, when he moved in with me, we were talking about his dad, and how he never talked to him, and maybe he should try forgiving him.  I said something to him about his father never hitting him.  He just looked at me.  Then he said quietly, “Mom, remember when you walked in my room and saw those bruises on my chest?”  Of course I did.  He said, “Dad did that.  He didn’t like the way I practiced, so on the way home he was hitting me with his right hand/arm all the way home while he was driving.”

My ex was a big very strong man.  He had arms the size of some people’s thighs.

I thought I would die.  I wanted to crawl in a hole for not figuring that out.  And it was apparently not the only time his father did something like that.  He swore my son to secrecy, somehow.  Threatened him if I ever found out.  Because he knew if I found out I would have had him arrested.  No doubt.

The night before I started my job, my first job outside our family business in 30 years, he started a huge fight with me, I’m sure because he was losing control of me.  He flipped a salad out of my hands so it flew all over the kitchen.  Then he started walking toward me, drunk.  I had my phone in my hand, and I said, “Go ahead, hit me.  I’d really like to see you in jail tonight.”  And he stopped and turned around and walked away.  Because he knew I meant it.  So he knew without a doubt, if I knew he’d hit our son I’d have called the police too.

But the guilt I felt over what he did to my son, on top of all the berating and belittling, trying to break his spirit, stayed with me for so long, and it easily still comes back.  It’s hardest to forgive yourself.  And last night I had to somehow get through that all over again.

I am so grateful and blessed that my son is such a good kid today.  I am so glad that I finally realized I had to get out of there, even though I had to leave him with his father for a time, I got through it, we got through it.  We have dealt together with what our lives were back then, I made him talk about it.

So many people feel like I should make him somehow talk to his father.  I just can’t, no one can understand what that was like for my son, and the fact is, he has a great life now, sans father.  I don’t know that his father could add anything but more chaos to his life.  I leave it up to him to deal with as he sees fit.  He tells me he’s not angry at his father, nor hates him, he just doesn’t want what  his father brings to his life.

So, it was hard to get to sleep last night, remembering this.  Related to that abuse, I guess, in my head, was S’s ease of betrayal of me recently.  Wondering if I’d ever find an honest true loving man.  It all seemed to fall in the same pot of abuse.

This morning, I still believe he’s out there.  I still believe I’ll find him.  The pull to Florida and a new life is strong.

Feeling blessed, that my son is a strong, healthy, wonderful kid.  And that I have a wonderful life now, with all good things in my future.

Love and light, all.

 

You’ll Get What You Need

Posted on by learning to live like water

I went to a friend’s house last night with a bottle of wine.  She is a member of my book club, and gets me and the person I am, and how I need to be consistent with my values.  She helped me to manage the anger I felt over the events of the last week, and other issues around them.  I was exhausted, I hadn’t slept but 3 hours the night before, and worked a full busy day.  I think I was running on adrenaline until about 9:30 last night, when I had the overwhelming desire to just lay down and go to sleep.  So I went home and did that.

I keep going back to my friend the gong player’s words, that the deck is always stacked in our favor.  Even when it seems it’s not.  I can believe that and hold on to it.

It’s going to be an incredibly cold weekend here, low temps below 0°F, and wind chills tonight of -20’s F.  Luckily it’s only a couple of days, and not weeks.  Seems a good weekend to start the serious business of getting the house ready to sell, especially since it’s a 3 day weekend here in the US.  I am really ready to work toward beginning this new chapter of my life, and leaving all this old, ugly stuff behind me.

Life doesn’t always give us what we want, thankfully, but usually gives us what we need.  As usual, may the universe work everything out for everyone’s highest good.  Love and light.

15 Minutes

Posted on by learning to live like water

alone

I don’t drink much.  If I do, it’s usually wine, and I vacillate between white and red, and usually a glass is plenty.  Sometimes a 2nd one, but more often than not, I can’t finish a 2nd glass.  But tonight….I wanted something to take the edge of my nerves, which are frayed to a fine, gossamer filament which could break any moment.  But not wine.  Wine would sour my stomach tonight.

I’m picky tonight. Holding on…..just holding on.  As someone said to me once, just for the next 15 minutes.  I need some help.  I would like to be numbed, just a little.  Enough to round the sharp corners in my psyche, in my heart.  Not enough to open the floodgates.

It’s a fine line.  I have to be vigilant.

My liquor cabinet (which is a box on the floor of my pantry) has in it a half bottle, half a 5th, (what’s that?  A 10th?) of Gosling’s Dark Rum, and a bottle of Amaretto, which I buy every year to make a raspberry Amaretto sauce for my Christmas cake, and maybe a shot or two of Vodka, which I keep here for my BFF.

Not a lot of choices.

So….I took a small glass, like a juice glass, and put what looked like maybe a shot of amaretto in it, and a shot of rum.  Of course, I could be totally off, I don’t have a shot glass.  I had one.  Just one.  And my son somehow managed to get it into the garbage disposal and I didn’t know it, and turned the disposal on.

He’s lucky my friend’s son knew how to take the disposal apart.  I paid him $50.

So, I guess now, if I need to measure.  Not that it mattered, I was only serving myself, a made up drink.  Because rum is not that easy to drink by itself, even on ice, and even rich dark rum from the royal Navy, and Amaretto is too sweet by itself.  Combined, it’s not really too bad.  And I couldn’t do Vodka straight no matter how much I needed a drink.

I think it will do what I need it to.

And first I took two ibuprofen for the massive headache I have.  I’m not sure that two was enough.  I’m thinking another one might be in order.

It will be a ride, this one.  Hope it doesn’t last too long.

The Physics of the Quest

Posted on by learning to live like water

physics of the quest

I love Liz Gilbert.  I first read Eat Pray Love years ago, during my divorce.  It was one of those things that I needed that the Universe put in my path.  This quote is from the end of it.

I did this, then.  I left EVERYTHING that was familiar and comforting.  A 40 year relationship, my house of 30 years, my job of 30 years, my son……I left it all.  I knew everyone I met was a teacher and I gleaned as much knowledge as I could from them all.

(Just to be clear… I moved a mile away from my son, who has now lived with me for the past 7 or 8 years. I did not abandon him,)

I’ve done it again, recently, though nowhere near as profoundly.

The truth has been revealed to me, once again, that’s for sure.  It always makes itself known, one way or the other.

Here’s to continuing the Quest.