Progress Along the Path

Home is shaping up a bit.  I noticed that even though the unpacking is still in progress...AND the organizing, too, the act of hanging art on the walls... just the right piece in a certain place... is helping me to feel more at home.  It is soothing to look at my creations.  I have put my heart and soul into them.  They are a little like my children!  Any artist understands this. 

The Path - The Yellow Brick Road?  Found the image on this website http://littlesebagomaine.blogspot.com/ and found a new friend!

 

 

 

 

 I have re-learned that during very difficult emotional times, my toolkit is essential, my trail of breadcrumbs to help me find my way:  deep breathing, staying quiet, allowing feelings to come without adding drama, fresh air/exercise and healthy foods and last, but absolutely not least, is the desire and commitment to finding JOY and much of that comes with the choice to be grateful.  I am so blessed to live now, fully as I choose, daily, fresh air, sunshine, spring flowers, birds singing, health and most of my freedoms still in tact.  Too much to be grateful for to be grumbling and worried.  Where there's will, there's way provided.  We'll just keep on keeping on here... hope you are, too.  Please feel free to leave your trail of breadcrumbs in the comment section below!

Trauma Drama

Whew.  Well, the technical part of packing up and the actual move are over.  I know you can relate.  Now the unpacking.  I usually love this part, rediscovering my "things" again.  Not so much this time.  I left my 113-year old farmhouse in the country, with the winding road that looks pastoral-masterpiece-inspired, along with my kitties.  Eternal gratitude to my kind neighbor who is keeping the kittens and finding homes for the rest.  She even calls and gives me updates.  I really hated unpacking boxes that had kitty things inside.  I thought when I found this little apartment in town that it'd be great for kitties... fenced in backyard, almost in the woods although in the city... but after moving in discovered D-O-G-S lived in every apartment.  After trying to get 3 of my babies to acclimate, they all disappeared into the woods, one never to return, I took the other two back out to the country.  Sigh.

Everything is always such a mixed blessing.  My meager income was stretched too thin, commuting, feeding 9 cats.  I'm saving on gas, time, rent, utilities, and now, cat food.  I went for a little visit today and they wouldn't even come near me, but one, my little C.  Good for them.  They deserve a mom who won't leave (them for) town.

I cried for days, while I cleaned up the "old" place.  I'm better now that I don't have to go back there anymore.  They say six months after any major event, it's back to life-as-usual. I hope it doesn't take 6 months, but it may take longer.  I loved my house.  There were things about it I didn't, but overall, it was beautiful: huge... 2-3 acres surrounded by more woods and quiet neighbors.  The peace, quiet, incredible-dark-starlit-skies and sweet country air are sorely missed.  I really lost it the last time I stood on my front porch and remembered all the mornings I waited for the bus with my son, watched him take off running for it, and tried to prepare myself for the day when he'll fly free.  But through the tears, as I took boxes to the dumpster, I could spot a few dim stars overhead, and took consolation.  I've begun to notice things I like about the new place in spite of myself.  The cure for melancholy regret is always gratitude.  I was in a rut, nothing like moving to jolt you out of your routine and allow for different choices.

Once order is restored I'll take out my art supplies and create something, maybe even more often, at least that is my goal.  I even thought (gasp) at one point, I should just forget about art.  It sure would cut down on unpacking and the organization needed to make it work in a tiny apartment.  And, that urge, no matter what else I'm doing, to think, "What could I be making right now, if I wasn't doing this?"  The truth is that often when I have the time, I'm not in the "mood."

I sense that once settled in I may actually make more art and better art, since I'll have less house to keep up with, and be more "efficient."  That's the word a friend used when she saw the place.  Not much storage though, which will require that I eliminate anything I don't really need and use.  And, that's a good thing, at this age, less for others to dispose of.  And, I'm doing it willingly, less stress for others, again.  57 isn't that old, but I deal with seniors on the phone at work all day, and my mom and her siblings are 80ish.  So, I can't help but think that we (others my age) are all going through the same kinds of things.  Hard to watch our parents age, harder still to see ourselves following in their footsteps.  Aging is not pretty no matter how you approach it. 

I struggle with giving in (or up) or trying to find a place inside myself to begin, again... to muster up some energy for another goal, besides just raising my son right, although that would certainly be enough, if that's all I end up doing.  It's all I feel I can do right now.  While I toy with the idea of running for public office, ha ha ha ha! I'll be glad when elections are over and I can let it go.  Right now, it's urgent, I feel (again) somehow like I'm responsible for saving the free world, or what's left of the freedoms we once had.  If you are reading this, please, please, please, research the candidates.  No need to debate it, just really examine the freedoms that we are losing by the minute.  Please.  The pain of moving, getting older are bad enough without the thought of how painful it would be to have no freedoms left at all.