SoCS: overdue

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “starts with over.” Find a word that starts with “over” and use it for your prompt.

I am long overdue for some counseling. Two weeks ago I wrote about having access to free counseling from my health center but I might have to wait a couple of weeks because there is a waiting list. Its been a couple of weeks. I was so hoping to hear something yesterday but not yet.

I can’t imagine doing that job; talking to people who are having mental health problems all day long and then look at the waiting list. You have to be a special kind of person which I am not. I would be drowning in all their sorrows.

Yessiree, I’m long overdue for help sorting out some issues. I have been to counseling in the past. Many years ago, when I was still married, I got help in an abused women’s shelter. I was learning about emotional abuse and how it was affecting me. I didn’t take her advice; I stayed with my husband because I thought he could be fixed. He didn’t hit me: that’s how low my bar was. They don’t change. No one is going to change what works for them.

I should have been going before this. Those of you who live alone (and some who don’t) know how difficult the pandemic was. Day after day of being alone for long periods of time is crazy-making. Even me, who likes to be alone and living on my own, went completely crazy. Yes, that’s the term. It did help when we got some zoom things going; at least I had some contact with people.

A lot of the issues I’m dealing with are not new. They have been dredged up from the past. Same ol’, same ol’. And that’s why I so desperately need to talk to someone who can help me sort it out. It runs around and around in my head.

I did take one step and that was tell my sister and her family that I needed some space until I talk to a therapist. I have tried so many times to explain how I feel but it only gets worse. Now I’m so frustrated and angry I can’t muster up pleasant conversation. Ew, pee-you, I’ve had so much shit dumped on me I am stinky! Yuck, who wants to be around that? Not me!

Having that space has given me some peace although it won’t solve anything. In the meantime I’m keeping busy. I washed and water-proofed my deck, got 2 yards of mulch for the shrub beds. Starting to plant my new butterfly garden. Had some dental work done, got my blood work done, snow tires off (“sounds like you need new wheel bearings.” always something.) Started mowing my lawn in sections, I’ll do some more today. I just do what I can do until I can’t do no more. Every single thing by myself then pat myself on the back.

I’m long overdue for some happiness, overdue for some fun, overdue for a genuine hug, overdue for some real conversation, overdue for some counselling! I can’t wait to talk to someone!

https://lindaghill.com/2023/05/12/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-may-13-2023/

SoCS: once upon a time

Once upon a time there was a young girl who met her Prince and knew she was going to live happily ever after. All she wanted to do was have children, live in ‘the country’ (she was an urban girl) grown her own food and live a spiritual life. That was so simple. All you need is a roof over your head and food to eat. That was ‘she’. I’m hardly that person anymore.

We couldn’t afford property but we could afford a run-down cottage on 2 1/2 acres on the Grand River. We worked in factories getting overtime when possible and paid off our mortgage in 11 years. His beekeeping and trees became a small business while he still worked at his NC machining jobs on night shifts. I started the farmers market and started making products from beeswax.

Our original plan had been to renovate this cottage to a year-round home and sell it to buy bigger property. But as we got into our 50’s I could see the place was never going to get finished being renovated. My plan was to fix up the house, build up the business then when we were ready to retire sell the whole thing out; lock, stock and barrel. Good plan, eh?

That didn’t happen. What was trauma at the time turned out to be the best thing that ever happened: he threw me out. He threw me out because I could no longer work hard enough. I was menopausal, mentally beaten down to mush, and he was right: I could no longer work hard enough. I couldn’t be good enough. He said “pack your bags. I’m driving you to your sister’s and dropping you off”. And that’s what he did.

That was 15 years ago. And I can honestly say that he did me a huge favor! What was once the worst thing that ever happened turned out to be the best thing. My only regret is sticking it out for so long because he didn’t hit me. That’s how low my bar was!: that he didn’t hit me! But standing up to him was going to go there because I couldn’t be obedient enough.

He chose to mortgage our home and buy me out rather than go to counselling. I bought this place, outright: paid for. But I still needed to earn money.

He called me the other day. We keep in touch. He hasn’t had plumbing for about 5 years now because he “can’t be bothered” to get the line fixed. I suspect there is a hoarding situation, knowing him. He maxed out his credit line last summer spending thousands of dollars and paying only the minimum amount. Now interest rates have gone up considerably. His truck needs fixing. He’s still doing the farmers markets and talking about how hard it is as he’s getting older but he needs the money.

He called because he “has work for me on the internet”. He won’t have internet or a cell phone. The composting toilet is having an infestation of fruit flies and he can’t get Vapona strips anymore so “look for something”. He also wanted the dates of Mercury in retrograde for the next 2 years.

I feel bad for him. I think of the life we could be having but that’s what he chooses. This is who he is.

And me? I am so selfish. I work on my happiness full time. So for now. . . I’m living happily ever after!

Your prompt for #JusJoJan the 14th and Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “once upon a time.” Start your post with “Once upon a time,” then write whatever comes to you, whether it be fact or fiction. 

https://lindaghill.com/2023/01/13/the-friday-reminder-for-socs-jusjojan-2023-daily-prompt-jan-14th/

Your prompt for #JusJoJan the 14th and Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “once upon a time.” Start your post with “Once upon a time,” then write whatever comes to you, whether it be fact or fiction. 

Daily Prompt; Smoke

“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”  This is not true with wood stoves. Where there’s smoke, there’s a fire that won’t ignite. If you don’t have a bellows, you’ll be huffing and puffing until you get dizzy.

In the last decade or so they have been using newspapers with fire retardants. Great for slowing down house fires but so frustrating for wood burners. The paper smolders while you pump away on the bellows saying “c’mon, c’mon, you #*@….”

I do have a propane furnace and love it. My ex-husband would only have wood heat so having a furnace and a programmable thermostat is a luxury for me that others take for granted. Being able to get up in the morning and just ‘turn on the heat’ is fantastic! The whole house heated up in such a short time…… WOW! I program it to be on when I come home from work because I found coming home to a warm house makes me happy; coming home to a cold house is depressing.

When it reaches 22C, it shuts off and I start a fire. If I start it while the furnace is on, the air pressure pulls smoke out of the stove, pouring into the house.  Even shutting the stove doors doesn’t work; smoke shoots out of the little draft holes. Then I have to open all the windows and doors losing the expensive propane heat. Only did that a couple of times before I caught on.

Just heating with propane would be so expensive I would have to work full-time just to heat my house. Besides, having lived with wood heat most of my life it would be very hard to give it up. I love everything about it; buying it, stacking it, burning it…. and I love being very, very warm. Not shivering in heavy sweaters all winter.

When a fire is burning properly, there shouldn’t be much smoke. That way it is combusting most of the gasses. When it’s not burning, it smolders and smokes. Then you have to poke and blow it.

Wow, is this ever boring. Maybe I should have written about smoking pot. About how tired I get of everyone happily holding their wine glasses and getting tight while smoking pot still makes you a pariah, a degenerate. I find drunkenness neither fun nor funny. There is a HUGE double standard when it comes to alcohol vs. marijuana. I hope it gets better when it’s legal next year.

But for now, I didn’t say that.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/smoke/

The Beeswax Screen

Darn it, I missed the prompt “Screen” the other day and it fits so well with the story I’ve been thinking about putting down in print, before it’s lost forever. Maybe I did see the prompt but didn’t think of it, at first. It must have percolated: through to my subconscious, picking through the memory files, working it’s way out a day later.

Back when I was a bee-keepers wife and worked at a Farmer’s Market, there was an older Italian lady who would pick up a beeswax bar, smell it and smile.  It was only a dollar but she never bought one. She didn’t speak English so when she came, smelled it and smiled, we would just smile and nod at each other.

One day she came with her daughter who said, “My mom wants to tell you why she loves the smell of beeswax so much.”

She was from a small town in Italy. When a young married couple moved into their new home the local ladies would get together with cotton thread and beeswax. They cut the thread into strands the length and width of their doorway. Two on a thread, they ran all the strands back and forth through beeswax until they were thickly covered then working all together they wove a screen for their doorway to keep out flies. It was a happy time: they sang and gossiped.

They hung it in the kitchen door like a curtain and it lasted for years and years.  In the summer a breeze would flow through it and you could smell the beeswax. Whenever she came to the market she would pick up the beeswax bar and the smell would take her back to those happy times.

I was so touched my this story and so happy she took the time to get her daughter to tell me, I insisted she take a bar of beeswax. At first she wouldn’t but I said it was well worth such a great story.  Now I have that beautiful memory.

 

 

 

“Fairy Tales Can Come True…

It can happen to you when you’re Young At Heart”

Today’s Prompt is; “And they lived happily ever after.” Think about this line for a few minutes. Are you living happily ever after? If not, what will it take for you to get there?

Come on. Fairy Tales end in “……happily ever after” when they get married. Yeah….. that was the big goal in the olden days: get married. Look good, be witty but compliant and you’ll get a good husband. And live happily ever after.

I got married and stay married for 28 years before I finally realized I couldn’t be happy with him (happiness was not allowed) and had to make a go of ‘being happy’ on my own. I am happier than I was but I could use a lot more happiness in my life.

Love makes people happy…. let’s face it. When it comes down to it that’s what we all want: Love.

It doesn’t have to be Prince Charming: it can be family or friends or an altruistic endeavor for humanity. It can be a deep spiritual love although, with that, some human companionship is missed. Even people who find a great love in God or Jesus wish they had another person to share that love with.

I have love of family. Yesterday I was at the beach with my sister, niece, nephew and their kids. I felt very loved and happy to be a part of them. It was my grandniece’s 7th birthday and she wanted to go the beach so they took her and her sister out of school and came to Grand Bend. My niece and her 2 1/2 year-old came, too. It raised my spirits from around my ankles up to my head. I’m so lucky to have them.

(I had an 8:00 to 1:00 shift in the bakery.  They all met at 1:30 just down the road from where I work. With all the Mercury in retrograde crap that’s going down  I can’t believe I got the right shift for it!)

At 62 years old I don’t expect to live happily ever after. Life just isn’t like that…. ever…… to anyone.

I still would really like to meet Prince Charming: I’m young at heart.  Someone who thinks I’m just wonderful and wants to make me happy by doing home renovations and taking me to restaurants.

But until I meet someone with those qualifications; I can be happy enough by myself.

 

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Happily Ever After.”

A Shoe In India

I’m using this prompt and if I don’t get as many views, so be it;

Write about a shoe.

One shoe jumps to mind immediately. The shoe that stayed in India.

I loved those shoes. Black leather with flaps and a cool buckle on the side. They fit so perfectly, soft and comfortable: they were silent when I walked.

We were warned to lock all our luggage but there was no way to lock the side pockets of my backpack. “Who would steal one shoe?” I thought naively.

Luckily, both shoes made it to my destination. I must have packed them going there or just been lucky. But on my way home, somewhere on a crowded train platform, someone opened a side pocket and took a shoe out.

They didn’t bother with the other side. My guess is they just tossed it in disgust.

It was really hard to throw out that other shoe, as if it could replicate or call to its mate far away, lying on a train track in India.

This is me, many years ago, in India wearing both shoes. (I cut out my ex husband so I can still like the photo)

I don’t know who the guy is; he just wanted his picture taken with us.

Attachment; it’s insidious.

https://theywalkthenight.wordpress.com/2015/01/15/writing-prompt-9-2/

I just went to WordPress Daily Prompt and found I can use this for both prompts!

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/