Working on detachment, my anxiety, and the joys of limbo

[Phoebe]

Hi everyone. I'm back home. Despite lack of sleep, today was a decided improvement over last night. I got to spend a lot of time with a really good empathetic person, and I was definitely in a better place, mentally.

On my way, I drove a bit out of the way and stopped into a local agriculture store to look at the chicks they had available. (Lots of nice breeds!) I'm still trying to decide.

I checked my own coop, and I know for certain that I have more than enough roost space for them at night, and the coop itself is large enough, as long as they have adequate space outdoors. When I need to keep them locked up they have an enclosed yard - say the weather is poor (winter!), or when I'm out to town. Chickens are brutal to each other and I already have some bullying in my group, so they are telling me that on confined days they are short of space. I need to build them a bigger outdoor under-roof area, so I might as well make it a little bigger to accommodate a few more birds.

I think I'm talking my self into more birds as I type. I mean, what the heck, right? What are 6 more (little) mouths to feed? It's not like I'm traveling between two states anymore following my H around, right? I am heeling myself in right here in my own place because I want to stay here.

The only real thing that pulls at me is the possibility of going on a long hiking trip again. In the past, I always sort of told myself that if anything happened to my H (and here I was thinking if he died suddenly, not if he ran away from home and got an OW) that I would go out and spend a few months hiking to get my head straight again. Part of me wonders if I ought to do that now, but I don't know if that would be healing in this circumstance, given that all of my previous trips were with H. Would I be lonely, more devastated, scared? I don't mean scared of being alone outdoors, or of the dark, or of anything silly like that, but of the larger picture. I just don't know. I should go out for a few nights to see how I feel about doing it alone.

Now there is a prime idea for me to get the heck out of the house for a few days - a short backpacking trip. The forecast this weekend is crummy, so i have time for some research, and the local ag store is going to have chicks for the next 6 weeks, so no quick decisions required. I don't think I can hand off baby chicks with a pet-sitter, so if I do some camping, it should be first.

You know, I am an idiot. I just realized when H started back into his secret life last year - right when we got our chicks. Because I couldn't leave chicks with a pet-sitter, he was going on his own back to the other state on his own every couple weeks. I was hemming and hawing if we should get chickens or not, but he encouraged me. After D-day he told me he swore off contact with his club "friends" after I found pot in his travel bag the previous fall (at the time he said it was from a coworker and I didn't know the club friends existed), but then he reestablished contact with them midyear. Sigh.

Another piece of the puzzle falls in place. I was told about this at the BAN meeting - that over time I would fit the puzzle together more and more. I guess it's true. Those cute little chicks gave H an excuse to get away from me.

Well, that was a crummy thing to just realize. And on that note, I think that he is never going to come back. He planned this for far too long. Sh1t.