More detachment, less anxiety and the continued joy of limbo

[Phoebe]

Hey Everyone! A big hello from the funny farm. Land of crazy chickens, wandering cats, pencil smiles and other Neature stuff.

SadHub - Reflection time is over for now, and today I'm movin' on to new stuff. I don't know that I'm ready to set myself a cutoff date, but I am definitely working on moving forward a whole lot more than I am looking backward.

Sotto, I do think that my H is well into MLC territory. He has jumped onto a totally new set of tracks. When I saw him for the first time after walk-away, he pointed out that he was just a child when we first met and that he had never even had a girlfriend before me! I just let it pass, but I knew I was in trouble with that statement; this was a whole lot more than a communication problem.

It's been a strange sort of day, not bad, not great, kind of a middling, but I have no complaints. It's a whole lot better than yesterday! It's chilly, in the low 40s, it rained off and on for most of the day, and it's been breezy, so it isn't the easiest day to be outdoors, but I was out there anyway. There was even snow in the air today both to the north and south of here! I have the heat on right now, whereas just 4 days ago it was 84 degrees and I was wishing I had my a/c units installed. It's been an odd spring. Of course, it was an odd winter, too.

Today I went on my first MeetUp group hike. Well, it was a whole lot more like a super leisurely stroll, but it was pleasant. I went with a group called Women Outdoors, and we walked in a local state preserve. The cool part was that I go to see wildflowers that I haven't seen in a whole lot of years. I first met these flowers on a long hike in the southeast, and here were those same plants all the way up north! This park is a bit unusual, habitat-wise, and the best part is an old hardwood forest, which is where most of the flowers were. The trees aren't pre-settlement, but range from 120-200 years old, so are still pretty big, so they create a very open shaded understory that is hard to come by in the Northeast.

There were 7 of us on the walk, and we looked at birds, flowers, and lovely views. Super slow walking, so definitely a nature walk and not a hike, but it was good. The only crummy thing was finding a tick on my arm while I was eating lunch afterward. Yuck. I had to change and shower when I got home. I may do more activities with this group. They do all kinds of things from kayaking to hiking to camping to snowshoeing to biking, so a lot of things I enjoy. The two coordinators are quite nice and I like them. The group is a large regional organization, so they have events over a huge area. The coordinators drove 2 hours to get to today's walk!

Tomorrow afternoon I see my therapist, and then in the evening I have my first Homesteading MeetUp. I'm looking forward to meeting a bunch of people that are all strangers to each other, so that we will all be on equal footing. There are supposed to be about 17 of us attending, so I'm expecting a pretty diverse group of interests and skills. I'm hoping that I will meet some like-minded people.

There's been no sign of last night's visiting cat yet today. I'm kind of disappointed because he was a sweetheart, but, as I said, I really don't need another feline friend.

This evening the drizzling rain has tailed off and the sun is popping out periodically, so it's a lot nicer outside. I have the chickens out free-ranging. Whenever I go outside, they all run to me and then follow me around, just in case I might have a treat, and at this time of day the cats are looking for dinner - picture a woman walking to her garden with 13 chickens and 3 cats in tow. It's kind of hilarious. My neighbor calls me the Pied Piper.

So... how are things big-picture-wise? Still NC with H since that incredibly brief admin email contact at the end of last week, so that's given me a lot of room to do some healing, and I think I've been doing pretty well in that department. One rogue tsunami attack yesterday, and one last week, so overall that's an improvement. I'm still sad sometimes, still confused about what happened to my life, but mostly I've been having more good days than bad.

I'm not sure what part the SSRIs are having in anything, but time and distance from H have definitely been good for me, as has been refraining from doing any internet trailing of H. I have only taken anxiety meds twice in the last week, and actually they were both nights that I was fed up with not being able to sleep! Sleeping remains a bit rocky. I'm still taking benadryl every night, though I'm going to see if I can nix that soon. I'm still a bit shaky, but not nearly as bad as a couple weeks ago, so improvement there, too, which is good, because that is getting OLD.

My weight is holding. Mostly. I'm down 32 pounds since walk-away, and slid down another pound this week when I slacked off a bit on my vigilance about eating. Still, it's lots better than at the beginning where I dropped about a pound a day, so I'm calling it progress!!! Simply choosing to embrace the weight loss and getting myself some new clothes that actually fit has been a huge help in reframing my outlook. At first I felt like I was wearing my grief like a uniform, with the weight loss as an obvious outward sign of the crisis I felt inside. Now I just try to look at it as a new me! I'm used to seeing myself this way now, whereas at first it was kind of a shock to look in a mirrror.

So. that's all the news that's fit to print.

I hope everyone gets some rest and has a peaceful tsunami-free day!