These past 11 months have been a mixture of the usual and
the unusual. I fell into the well
again. This time I fell in earlier than
usual and stayed there longer. No matter
what I have done, I have not been able to break this pattern.
Just after the first of the year, I was offered an
opportunity to move. The new option was
a much smaller community that I was already familiar with and knew several
people that lived there. The house would
be about the same but different layouts and the bonus of a garage. At first, I was shocked and couldn’t even
contemplate moving again. It would mean
having to pack up everything I own (and I own a LOT) and selling my place.
I guess I didn’t really give it much attention. I was so deep in the well that barely any
light reached in and I couldn’t rouse myself for heavy thoughts. In the middle of February, I received a phone
call saying they needed a decision. Uh…WHAT!?!?
Yeah… So, I made a pro/con list. I wrote down everything I could think of big
or small. There were a lot of pros on
the list, many more than the cons.
However, one item on the cons had a much heavier weight to it and so
needed to be counted as more than one item.
I reviewed the list, slept on it, reviewed it again and tried to contact
my “best friend” to get some additional insight. I could never get in touch with her.
Two days after the ‘we need a decision now but no pressure’
call, I received another call saying now we REALLY need a decision. So…I dived in and said yes.
I called my realtor, went under contract on my house within
10 days and packed up. On May 14th,
I moved into my new place.
Within 20 days, I was ready to move again. There are a lot of reasons why, and I’ll get
into that another time. But let’s just
say that con that had so much weight? It
was much, MUCH heavier than I’d given credit to.
We will call this, lesson one.
I’ve been making the best of things here. I’m walking again as I feel safe in the
community and know that if I have a fainting/falling issue, someone would be
there to help fairly quickly. I’m very
much enjoying the trees and having a small wooded bit behind my home. And I love having a garage. I store my excess there instead of having
tubs stacked hither and yon in my house proper.
I was also able to set up the guest room as my studio and have it
actually useable.
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For the past couple of years, my family have been trying to
sell our home in the Southern Appalachians.
My grandparents bought it 30+ years ago and I have so many wonderful
memories of holidays and vacations spent there.
I’ve always loved the house and the location and even offered to buy it
from them many years ago, but I couldn’t afford their asking price.
Now, it is being sold.
It is under contract and should have closed in early August. That was pushed back a week and then another
week. Now we are waiting to hear when
the closing will be. And honestly, some
are wondering if it will even close.
To take advantage of my last chance of spending time there,
I took myself off at the end of July for a short visit. I had such a marvelous time, I extended my
stay by a few days and would have stayed longer but I hadn’t taken enough of my
prescription medicines with me.
I felt such peace whilst there.
It was a mental peace, an emotional peace, and a spiritual
peace. Surprisingly, it was also a
physical peace. I had no breathing
issues (this is a new thing I’m dealing with), I hardly had to blow my nose the
whole time (at home it is many, many times a day – TMI!). The most important change I noticed was a bit
of lessening of the constant pressure/pain in my head. I’ve had such never-ending pain with these
headaches for so long, even the slightest lowering of pain is noticeable and
wonderful.
It was simply – my place.
For many years I’ve avoided going up there unless someone
else was with me. The reason why is too
long to explain here, but I wasn’t comfortable being there alone.
Until now.
I should have gone many times. I’ve had years that I could have spent any
amount of time up there I wanted. Lots
of wasted years.
When I returned home, I realized that was where I needed to
be. I NEED to be in the mountains.
We will call this, lesson two.
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A week after I returned from the mountains, I received a
text from my “best friend”. Yes, the
same person I wasn’t able to get in touch with months ago when I needed
her. Her text was basically saying how
much she missed me, thought about me all the time, wanted to talk to me all the
time and how I’m so important to her life and always will be.
After a flurry of texts between us where we “caught up”, I
got a call and we started talking about the eclipse. She was telling me how, many months ago, she’d
reserved a hotel room someplace in Georgia that was in the path of
totality. She talked about how it was
such a big event and she wanted her two youngest to experience the whole thing
and was taking them out of school to take them to view it. I wondered out loud if our mountain house
area was in the path and she looked it up and said it was. We quickly made plans to head to the
mountains (she could save those hotel fees) and have our own little viewing
party.
Long story short?
The mountain house town was in the 99% and another town 20
miles away was in the 100% so she took her kids and paid an exorbitant amount
of money for a hotel room for the night before the eclipse and left me at the
house alone – with no car.
Side note: she did say I should come with them, but I couldn’t
as I had someone coming the afternoon of the eclipse to pick up a piece of
furniture to bring back to my house.
Late Monday afternoon, I get a text saying traffic is
stopped on the highway and the hotel had a no show and was going to let them
stay there that night and they would be back the next morning.
Now we are at two nights alone with no car.
Tuesday morning, a text comes in saying they are on their
way. Two hours later they show up (it
was a 20-minute drive) and the youngest is not feeling well. After about two hours of doing nothing but
fidgeting she says she thinks it’s time to go home. We were supposed to go on Wednesday, although
I was possibly going to stay since my mum might have to come up for the closing
at the end of the week.
I told her I was not ready to leave but if she felt she had
to go, then she should. She spent the
next three or so hours packing up, asking me every 10 minutes if I’d heard from
my mum (so I’d know if I would have a ride home) and talking about cleaning.
When she first asked I explained that it would be late in
the day when I heard from my mum. I told
her this repeatedly. I also asked that
she run me to the grocers before they left so I could have plenty of water (the
tap water was very metallic tasting).
Eventually she was done, and just left for her 6 ½ hour drive (what
should only take 3) with a sick child who very easily gets car sick.
And no, I didn’t get that ride to the store.
I received a text that they’d made it home about 4 hours
later. (She said she’d put the wrong
route in her GPS hence her thinking it would take 6+ hours.) Oh, and she wanted to know if I’d heard from
my mum cause she’d come back and get me if she needed to. Right.
Night three, alone – no car.
She texted the next day to ask if my mum was coming up. I replied that everything was fine. I’ve had one other text that I’ve not replied
to and haven’t heard another peep from her.
If I’d had a pad of paper with me, I’d have written her
quite a scathing letter.
Instead, I reflected on our friendship of 13 years and I
realized something. She is a user. She is a person who takes what they want from
people and gives back only enough to have the person willing to let her take
from them again. The times I really
needed her, she was never there. When
this first occurred early in our friendship, I (and she encouragingly)
attributed her behavior to the influence of a third party.
Now I know that was never true. It has always been her way.
Over the past few years, I had told myself many times I was
done with her friendship.
Now things are crystal clear. I am D O N E.
We will call this, lesson three.
And what a lesson it was.
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August and I have not been friends for many, many, many moons. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever liked the
month of August. It has always been too
hot for this cold weather loving heart.
It signaled the start back to school, which was never my favorite place
to be. And then there was the name that
my father gave it when I was young and lived summers with him – Austerity August. Yes, he named the months that he said we
couldn’t spend money for things. (Stingy September, etc.) Well,
except for his rounds of golf. His many,
many rounds of golf.
Anywho, my real loathing of August began in 1983 when my
grandmommy died quite suddenly. Since
1983, August has taken many souls from my life.
All of my grandparents died in August (all within the same five-day span
over 20+ years), my beloved beastie – Dylan (my black lab), a man I met only
once but he touched my soul so deeply I felt I’d known him for centuries – Papa
Edgard, and several friends of my family.
Then, of course, there are things the likes of Katrina and Harvey, which
deeply affect this tender-hearted empathic medium. So many souls passing so quickly… So much devastation and the grief singing
through the air.
Every year, I begin in June or July to worry as to what
August will bring. This year, when I
arrived at the mountain house at the end of July, I felt compelled to try a new
tactic.
I made friends with August.
I did this publicly (on Instagram) and therefor set my intention not
just within myself, but sent it wide to the universe so it couldn’t be missed.
I set up a little altar to welcome August and Lughnasadh on the first. Every day, I consciously focused on August
being a good month. I did things that
would make it a good month: sketching, reading, painting, witching, creating,
walking, eclipse watching, etc.
Now, I’m happy to say, August and I have made friends. We’re not besties, yet. But we can enjoy each other without anxiety
and with appreciation for what we have to offer.
That makes lesson four and brings us to the end of this
series of lessons.
(I’m planning to try that consciously focused method
whenever the well starts to deepen and hopefully it will help me stay out of
it.)
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I’ve been a very neglectful blogger, even in visiting. I’ve started making the rounds again and trying
to see what everyone is up to. I truly
miss it when I’m not here visiting with you lovely souls. I think I stopped writing because I felt I never
had anything to say. My life for several
years now has been quite boring, filled with the ravages of chronic pain/health
issues and little else.
Well, I’ve been doing a lot more, and I have lots to
share. My life seems to be filling
itself up and I am quite happy. I hope
to continue to fill it even more and keep having things to share here.
Thanks for visiting (and sticking with me),
love & blessings
~*~
