Detachment, anxiety and the end of limbo 2

[SH_]

Egads!! You and that darn awful sleep battle.
I am gonna have to come over there and do something to keep you away from all the dang things that keep getting your mind in such a whirl that it is high jacking your sleep faculties. You my dear young lady need some peaceful sleep and a normal sleep cycle. the brain and the rest of your physical self would greatly appreciate it. I am gonna do some research for you and see what we can come up with to help you out. I know several folks that have gone to great lengths to overcome full blown insomnia, so I know there is a trick or 2 out there that we can get going for you.

So this peaches thing. I love that and did not know that there were many folks out there that still did that. I grew up with my mother and grandmother doing the kind of thing all of the time. We would have pantries and food storage closets full of canned peaches and just about any other thing you could can. And I grew up eating it for almost every meal. Some of the canned food was divine. There were some other options that were not so much. LOL

I am watching you and this situation with your L friend. I would say you are handling it well, and I can see the conflict. I don't have a lot of advice, but you know what is best and you are doing what you know is right in spite of the feelings to be held and find comfort. This is why you are progressing and growing.
Remember, a flawed diamond is better than a smooth stone. So even if you stumble, screw up or make a mistake, the challenges are making you the person a fool is leaving and the person that someone in your future will love and cherish in a good relationship.

Sleep well my dear Phoebe. I am still stalking...er I mean watching...er I mean here to support and chat with you as we travel a road we never imagined, but will both be better off for going through it.

[Painter]

Hi Phoebe,

Just checking in - it's that time of night! I'm going to take a pill tonight, I haven't slept very well for several nights without. Have you been out to say goodnight to all your wild critters? I'm starting to imagine you as Cinderella with the birds and skunks helping you clean and sew...

What have you been up to today? I've been perfectly busy but also got some shocking info in my hands today that I'm digesting. Like so much other shocking info over the last 2 years, I wonder if it will ever stop or if I'm caught in a Groundhog Day-version of a Jerry Springer episode!

[Phoebe]

Yes, the sleep battle goes ever onward, it seems.

I somehow doubt that I'll be sleeping much tonight, either, so I'm heading off very soon to my sleeping quarters and taking meds. Of course, It's already 2:45 am...

So the good parts of the day - I got around 6 hours of sleep finally, spent time with my parents, rode my bike with L-friend, and had a good dinner.

So the first bump for the morning was that I have been checking H and AP photo feeds in an effort to provide my L with some location info to help get H served. (L and L-friend both advised me to do so, though I don't like doing it.) Today, I saw that she posted an actual picture of him, so there he was getting off a plane jetway looking very good, and she was right there, taking photos of my happy, smiling, self-satisfied-looking H. (yuck to that) So, not only are they traveling together for the umpteenth time, but she's marking her territory again. Like putting up a pic of our other house or our vintage car, but now just a wee bit more territorial. Yuck to that, too.

So, that was not great, but not unexpected. It was just a small bump for the morning, but I suppose it influenced my mindset for the rest of the day.

Beyond that, I'm sick of everything right now. The day started out OK, but took a dive, and it had nothing to do with H (well, not directly, though he sowed the original seeds of the pain that got dredged up tonight). It's my own damn fault, too. It has everything to do with the L-friend, and i don't think I'm up to sharing about it right now.

SuperHero, suffice it to say that this diamond is surely flawed, and I hope that you don't judge me too harshly. I am human, and a wounded one, at that. Now I've had my feelings hurt and I'm insulted, to boot. I'll leave it at that.

So, on a lighter note, I have a chicken in my bathtub - yet another broody hen. Maybe it's the same girl making repeat appearances in the broody-breaker kennel, I don't really know, but it's getting much harder to deal with. When I had a broody hen previously, I just put her in a dog kennel, raised off the ground, and put that inside my little chick coop. I did that because it has 1/2" hardware cloth, and is therefore safe from predators, but the dog kennel is not. If I left the dog kennel kennel outside all night, I'd have a dead chicken because I have seen all the major chicken predators right around the coop, skunks, opossums, raccoons, red fox, and gray fox, all just looking for some chicken tenders.

Anyway, now that the mini coop is full of chicks, I don't have that option. Instead, I was putting the dog cage outside during the day and was moving Miss Broody and her cage into the coop every night for safe keeping. During the day I would put her in the shade right next to the chicks. I'm a bit slow, but today I realized that the proximity to all those young chicken sounds is making her MORE broody. As I said, I'm bit slow. Anyway, I was away from the farm all afternoon and night and it was too hot to keep the kennel inside the coop all day, but I couldn't leave her outside, or... dead chicken. So, I had to install her and her kennel indoors, and the only place that made any sense was the bathtub.

My life is a zoo, in more ways than one.

Anyway, I'm upset tonight, my feelings are hurt, and I need to deal with it.

Tomorrow I am going ice skating again, and strawberry picking immediately afterward.

[Phoebe]

Drugged for sleep and feeling angry. Wonderful way to end the day. I hope everyone has a good rest.

[JksD]

(((Phoebe)))

Sorry to hear about OW marking her territory. You know, I just have this mental image of a 4-legged female canine raising its....


Anyway, there is this big difference. She's on all 4s and you're a classy lady.

Of course you're human. But you're a really classy human, and you have handled all your horrible ordeal very well. You rein in your anger and you don't spew.

Phoebe, please don't beat yourself up. Sweet dreams, lovely animal whisperer!

[J5K]

(((Phoebe)))

I can only imagine how hard this is. Please start thinking about your H as another friend who existed in your life or just met and is more of an acquaintance. I still think about my W but it is more in that context as she is so different. Do I still get angry and have feelings, yes, but those feelings will fade with time sweet Phoebe.

I know you were doing this to get info on H's location. Maybe have someone else do this so it does not cause you so much pain.

I hope you managed to get some decent rest.

[SH_]

Phoebe, you know that I will never judge you. Only share thoughts, ideas and hard advice from an outside perspective, while feeling similar conflict as you are going through.
You are in the midst of great pressure and you will stumble, make poor choices and feel things that conflict with what you know is right. These are the flaws in the diamond we will become. But a diamond we will become, because we will have walked through the Valley of the shadow of death........and survived. We will never be the same, but we can still be good, and worthy of great things and blessings.

So I say to you, do not judge yourself so harshly.
Learn from your actions. Adjust your thoughts. And make a different choice when faced with the decision again. You do not need to be perfect. You on,y need to learn from the choice you make and adjust.

Be true to your higher self and you will find the peace so desperately sought out now.

[Vanilla]

Phoebe when you have to research or hunt for Intel, have a good friend around or immediately afterwards.

I do this with Bestie

V

[Phoebe]

So, i had a much better day today. In fact, it was as really good day again.

I went ice skating, then got lunch with my R-friend. (I've decided to start using a letter for my friends, as it's so much easier.) She and I then got some lunch and we went strawberry picking again. We had a nice girl talk about my L-friend entanglement, which is something totally new for me, and a very nice change from just bottling up the topic altogether, which is what I've done for my whole life.

H was my best friend and I almost never shared any details of our relationship with anyone else. I've just always been very private. I shared the pain and struggle of H's ED with exactly two people in 25 years, and then only very briefly, although it had incredibly deleterious effects on us both. Had I been able to share what was going on, I think that I would have learned much earlier that it wasn't because there was something wrong with me, or that I was not attractive or not doing things right, or whatever. I lived with those feelings for at least 12 years before we got help from a doctor. It was very, very difficult and left us both with deep wounds and scars, not from any anger, just from pain. We were just kids when we met, and the problem existed from day one.

So anyway, this time I decided it was time to do a 180. I wasn't going to bottle up my concerns and thoughts behind a veil of privacy, and I discovered that it's nice to have another woman to talk to.

So after I got home from strawberry picking, I talked to L-friend about what he said that bothered me, and he apologized and came over for an 18 mile semi-hilly bike ride, and that was excellent. Most of the time I've been riding with him on a 16 mile ride in a big city park that is fairly flat, though pleasant, but I prefer the back country roads. There's more shade with roads that wind through the woods, and there areno other bikers/walkers/joggers/rollerbladers to avoid. There's a car that goes by now and again, but very few. It's just a lovely ride, and it's my home town, so I've been riding these roads for most of my life. I like feeling a deep connection to where I live.

After biking, we made some dinner, spent some together, and then he headed home. Yes, I caved in to my need for comfort a few days ago. A friend of mine said I'd be married until I didn't feel married any more. I guess I just don't. I have dropped the rope, so to speak. H has thoroughly washed his hands of me and there has been absolutely zero contact, at all, in almost three months. He's gone, deep in the throes of his new life and new relationship, traveling all over the place, I have no idea where he even lives any more or if he is even still working or where. I accept that, and know that I cannot change it. I'm left needing to learn how to navigate the world on my own, and I am doing so.

This isn't a rebound R with L-friend because we both know that there is no future path that we could both walk. I am deeply in love with my farm and he's a city boy, and that's OK with both of us. Never mind that he's 14 years older than I am, and various other long-term deal breakers... We are just two people who both enjoy being active outdoors, and we can offer each other some measure of comfort. He offered himself to me after that heartbreaking hug over the weekend, and I thought about it for days. We talked about boundaries and expectations and how it would work, and the bottom line is that we are friends first, and there are realistic expectations with that. It's been good for me to remember that I was an individual with my own needs long before H entered my life, and I will remain so for the rest of my life. I don't need a man in my life all the time, but it is very nice to have one visit sometimes.

Anyway, I hope that you won't think of me too harshly. I know very well that some people here will think that I am doing something wrong, and I have no answer for them. All I know is that I am finally back to the point that I can imagine my life going on and begin good again, and allowing myself the comfort of human touch is part of that process. It is still early days, and I am not at all ready for a love relationship, but I am ready to remember that I am a whole human being. I have an aunt that is still angry and bitter over 30 years after her husband left her, blaming men and the universe, never allowing herself to be with anyone else. I am choosing to look for the good that life still has to offer.

After L-friend left, I took another long moonless night walk through my fields. I may not be very good at meditation, but the calm and comfort and peace that these walks bring me is beyond price.

My skunk karma must still be good because while I was looking up at the stars, I almost walked right into one! What caught my attention and made me scan the dark was a tiny scent of musk in the air! It was in the path about 6 feet away from me. It never jumped, raised its tail, or made any sign that it was frightened or felt threatened. I just talked to it softly, and it went on its merry little skunk way. What cool little creatures.

Tomorrow I have to get up at the crack of dawn because I am going cherry-picking with R-friend. I will be a totally new experience for me. I love picking berries, apples, anything really. It's very soothing, gathering food.

My "chicken in a bathtub" is installed again. She seemed to be back to normal this afternoon, and so tI let her out to spend time with her chicken buddies, doing chicken things, but when I went to lock up the coop for the night, there she was, back in her full grumpy broody-hen splendor, holding court in the same nest box again. Sigh. Back into isolation...

I hope that everyone has a good night. I want to check in on your threads, but I have to get myself at least a few hours of sleep. It's almost 2 am and I have to get up by 6. Oops.

Thank you so much, Dory Grl, SuperHawk, JimKao and Vanilla for checking in on me and for your kind words. Sending positive energy out to all of you. HUGS!!!

[J5K]

Phoebe,

It sounds like a perfect day! I enjoyed reading your post! I don't think anyone should judge how you feel and what you did. When I read your post it sounded like you are whole again and happy with the results of your day, that is what matters.

I hope you slept well and had some sweet dreams!