More detachment, less anxiety and the continued joy of limbo

[Phoebe]

Poor pup. I hope she's feeling better soon.

My therapist doesn't really challenge me much, either. Mostly he's super nice and supportive, etc. He does some gentle steering, but he is definitely observant. I did my grief history graph for the grief counseling work, but my therapist asked if he could see it when I mentioned what I was working on. I decided that I ought to talk it through with him, rather than just handing him a copy to look at on his own and ask about.

I do think that I will get a much different perspective than what I got when I went through it with the grief counselor. In that program, the approach is just to listen as I talk about my history, and not to ask questions until I am finished. My therapist peppers me with questions as I go along, so we talk about each event and the overall themes we see.

Today I need to plant 5 semi-dwarf apple trees, 4 of which are heirloom varieties. I have something like 22 (+/-) fruit trees that I've put in, but I had some serious attrition in the last 2 winters, so the peaches are out of here, as well as a couple plums that croaked. It's a bummer, as I love peaches. At the moment, that leaves me with apples, crabapples, pears, apricots, cherries, an almond, an English plum, and mulberries. So far only the apples have borne fruit, but the oldest trees only went in 4 springs ago, so they're young. Oh, I also planted hybrid chestnut trees 2 springs ago. I worry about their hardiness, too, but so far so good. Chestnuts are really good, but I've got at least 5-7 years until they produce anything. I have a huge old shagbark hickory that's probably a couple hundred years old and bears delicious nuts, and I have a lot of very old apple trees, of unknown varieties scattered all over the property. The old apples make incredible cider.

I was hoping to find anyone that did similar things at the meeting, but unfortunately, only 8 people showed up and they had few skills beyond the woman who I had tea with. One lady (who came in pajamas, I might add) and her H seemed to only be there to complain that she can't do anything with their property because her neighbor sprays and she has over 100 allergies, and she has to call the police all the time because the spraying is illegal, and they're disabled, and"the government put new windows in [her] place and they svck". All this when they were just supposed to be introducing themselves. Good grief!!! Signing up for every assistance program and complaining that what they got for free isn't good enough, and hating on all their neighbors? Not people I can relate to at all! Another woman (friend of this couple, so also out there) cornered me about my property right off the bat while we were talking in a circle. "You have all that by yourself? Don't you have anyone else that helps you? Aren't you afraid to be alone? Don't you get lonely? Don't you want someone with you?" Ugh. I finally had to shut her down by saying my H left 5 months ago, and now I'm alone, and of course I'm lonely! I was not pleased to be badgered like that in public. The woman had zero social skills.

RUN AWAY!

I am really looking forward to seeing my therapist again tomorrow, though. The twice a week thing is a bit unusual, but I need to talk some things through, I guess, andI feel like I may finally be getting to something important.

It's chilly today, and I'm not very motivated.