psychology

time heals all wounds?

The Renovator

They say that time heals all wounds, right? You’ve heard that, surely. Maybe it just gives us some time to think about changing the right of importance of things in our mind. I don’t feel like some of my wounds are healed. So much time has passed since my last post. Life got busy and it was a much needed sort of distraction. Many, many things have happened. One child graduated form high school. The other one is moving into high school. Big milestones, decisions on college, and working and then not working. Got a new cat as one cat was getting really sick, not planned that way at all. the universe throws things at you left and right and it is true about how you react to things and your stress level. That all takes practice though. A curve ball is a curve ball.

My job is wonderful. It was weird for sure working for two months and then being able to be off for the summer. A gift from the universe that I truly appreciated. I find such joy and take such pride that my job provided our family with some wonderful benefits. I enjoy going there everyday, seeing the kids and feeling the energy in the building. Bonus is seeing my kids. Last year I got to see my daughter during the day and sometimes ride to work with her, and now I get to see my son some days. The chaos of the end of the school year is something I am grateful to have experienced. Then in September I get to see a new chaos of the beginning….lol.

We got a new kitten in May. I flew to Dallas to get her and spent a few days at the cattery. We found out the week I was supposed to fly down that our other male cat was very sick. We were contemplating canceling the kitten and the flight. Would that change the circumstances? Would that heal the cat? Nope. An old friend from high school gave me some of her frequent flyer miles, if it weren’t for that, we never could’ve pulled this off. I am eternally grateful for her generosity and kindness. It was a great trip. Saw lots of kittens and went to a wonderful Buddhist temple. Prayed and soaked up some much needed zen. I felt lighter when I returned home.

The male cat is very ill. He most likely has cancer. He is young and it’s heart breaking. Somethings just happen like that. We have had three dogs and 2 cats in our lifetime of being together that have had cancer. One of the dogs we got as an older puppy and she was about 2 when she started being sick. They thought she had a bladder infection and started treatment for it. We were scheduled to go on vacation in the middle of her treatment and had a dog sitter coming. We got a text after being on vacation for a week when we were on our way home that she was having trouble standing up. When we arrived home it was a whirlwind trip to the veterinary ER. We were shocked at all the tests she needed and started a fundraiser for the pup. In the end she never came home from the ER after a few days, it was determined she had a brain tumor. I love that damn dog. She always carried someones shoe around in her mouth and would snap her jaw to talk to you while you fixed dinner and she stood next to you. She most likely had that from birth. I am sure that this cat we have most likely had his since then as well. Looking back on the dog she had odd signs of something wrong. The cat has been odd not quite form day one but sometimes after getting comfortable he began odd behavior. So…the beat goes on? Are these things that we just have to learn to roll with? I still haven’t healed form losing the catahoula to spleen cancer back in the fall. I yearn for her velvety ears and leathery belly skin. I yearn for her to nudge my hand with her nose on the couch and I yearn for her big catahoula hugs like I yearn for chocolate. Owning pets is not easy. But man you signed up to there there until the end and the end is never pretty, but you just have to do what you signed up for. The worst day of owning a pet is the last day.

It’s more pain when you get the social media memories pop up of starting your business or expanding your business. Some days I look, while other days I skip over them. Does that give me the ability to heal from this? My daughter wanted to talk about what the other person is doing with the company now and how she dislikes it. It was a rough few minutes and my husband had to leave the room. It’s utterly painful. This month marks a year since we put the whole place up for sale. However within that year there was so much trauma that how could we heal from anything, we just kept getting knocked down right as we got back up. Trying to maneuver our way through this grief is going to take strategic planning, kids gloves and a lot of time. Because it was such a huge part of our lives for eight years.

All of this stuff, just everything has given me a chance to look deeply at things. I look at everything I see with different eyes now. I stop and look at the shades of blue in the sky in awe of it’s vast infinity. I look at the shapes of the clouds and appreciate their curves. I love to see the morning doves walking down my street in pairs. I take every visit form a cardinal very seriously. I take every moment I get with my kids and savor it. Same with my husband. I am thankful for the blades of grass I walk on to get to the patio my son built. Take nothing for granted, be grateful for everything, smile along the way. This journey over the past year has been such an eye opening experience.

Over the past few days I have been thinking about what I wanted to write when I got the chance. I had so many thoughts and comments. Fleeting I guess. If you take away anything it is that life can be cruel, unkind and it is never fair. However, you have the ability to be in control of how you react and how you feel about and towards all of the things that life throws your way. There is no perfect way of doing this and my god it takes practice like you’ve never practiced anything in your life. If you can teach yourself to get through and appreciate the things around you both small and large, you will feel like a different person on the other side. I suppose it’s like climbing a mountain in thick fog. There is a rope along the trail, you can hold it, or you can use your hands to get to the top. If the rope is there, why not use it. If the clouds are there why not appreciate them. If the birds are singing why not listen to them. Slow down and appreciate what is around you, it will get you through some tough shit.

Take a deep breath in your nose….keep going a little more….blow it out your mouth very slowly and with purpose. Do this five times in a row. See how you feel. Practice this. Practice kindness, practice gratitude, practice joy in simplicity. Find your rope and when you reach the top of your mountain, shout out and be proud that you’ve done it.

Now if I could get some positive juju from anyone reading this, my husband is waiting to hear about a huge opportunity. He has been waiting for several weeks now. This is a lesson in patience. I keep sending it out the the universe that this would be a wonderful gift, for him to seize this opportunity. Hey universe…can you hear me?

Joy and peace to you all-

Never stop climbing, and never stop shouting once you get to the top.

New & Change.

The Renovator

Well, it’s done. All that waiting I was doing back in the first post, it’s all done. The sale of the real estate finally went through. It still feels odd. I feel relieved, I feel a tiny bit empty, I feel a tiny bit lost, I feel joy that I don’t have to listen for my cell phone to ring saying the alarm went off. I feel guilty for feeling relief. I feel relief. I feel anger and I am scared at the debt we face. This is just compounded now thought because we are both without jobs and getting ready to send one of our kids to college. I have applied for work back in the operating room. He has 168 resumes out since March 16th. He’s had some interviews, many rejections, and a few things hopefully panning out in the next couple of weeks. We are hoping for options to sit and weigh out.

It’s like our life was on a table and someone came a long and threw it up in the air. We have been through similar circumstances. We’ve been through him losing a job and getting laid off before a couple of times. Companies are always downsizing or shifting sales forces around. This time with the shop and it closing and the loss within our household it’s such an upheaval. I am confident it will settle down and we will all feel whole again.

I really want to create again. I want to go sit at my bench and make some sterling silver bobbles or make some kind of cool chains or rings. I sat there the other day and ended up just fiddling around and mostly staring at all my things. I need a few tools to make something new that I have tried. That’s not an option. I can’t buy the tools. So, I decided to write. I tried looking up info on meta tags and how they help a blog. I couldn’t focus on that. I guess today isn’t the day for any of that stuff. Sometimes I just think my brain just can’t do it because it wants to do nothing. What do you think? Ever feel like your brain just needs a break, to breath I guess I’ve been distracted here as I write this. Robins in the rain outside. Itches in my ears. Music playing. Crinkling in my neck. When I feel this way it’s like my brain is fighting with itself. Want to focus, can’t focus.

In other renovations…I am managing to keep my fiddle leaf fig tree alive. I’ve had it for a few months now…got some brown spots and little dry on the edges of the leaves. I was told it would be easy to take care of, but the more I read about them the more I see they are finicky and infant like. Meanwhile my favorite jade is dropping pieces like it’s snowing. Houseplants are a fun little hobby. The green makes me happy.

And now I have to make dinner…which I am grateful for.

Absorbing Distractions

The Renovator

When you have had a “day”, what do you do for yourself? I am surrounded by my dogs, one of my cats, in my flannel pajamas and decided to write. I need to do this. I need to do this for me, to get it out of my head, to try to organize my mind and thoughts. I like background noise or distraction too, for when I need to stop and take a breath and look up. When I need a distraction it has to be something half interesting to me…This is a pretty cool show. Flavorful Origins, check it out. I find that these distractions, whether I am writing or need it during the day while I do other tasks, they soothe me. They sooth the chaos that runs rampant in my mind. Sometimes I feel it coursing through my veins. Today started out fine, in fact it was all great until about later afternoon. Why did I have to check business email before I went into Target? Why? Two emails that frustrated me to the point that if there was anyone near the car they would’ve heard me yelling. What came out of my mouth wasn’t positive. Normally it would’ve been curse words as I swear like a well versed truck driver or sailor. It was not. Frankly I don’t even want to write what I said but I feel it will help you, the reader understand the whole picture and maybe feel the frustrations. “I hate them all.” I yelled it more than three times. Why was I even counting while I was yelling, then I lost count. This past week I have needed multiple distractions just to have background while I try to concentrate on something. It’s been audio books, podcasts, and all kinds of music. I generally end up putting on familiar cello music. The cello soothes me like nothing else. I cannot wait to put more of the story on this blog. It gives me something to focus on when things don’t seem to be moving or I get annoying emails that are repetitive and asking for things that don’t make sense. This will all be done soon, there is sun on the horizon. This is not going to be the rest of my life, I will not let this define me. I will grow and change from all of this. Some days are hard and you have to eat a do-nut though. Swear on sailors.


Bearing the storm.

The Renovator

The last post was about waiting. I am still waiting. This time it’s different. I truly feel like there has been a storm around me or following me since I don’t even know, back in 2018 at some point. I was thinking back yesterday to a time when it might have began. Our business was shifting and changing and there was shifts and changes around the outside of that. The exterior shifts regarding the business seemed to bring a lot of, shall we say, “bad air”. I tried to ignore them, I tried sage. I tried the power of positivity. It felt like they were all cheap band-aids. It felt like when you get in a pool as a kid with a cut and you have a band-aid on it and then it’s all soggy and falling off when you get out. I felt like your fingers when you stay too long in the bathtub. You know, they get all wrinkly form being in the water too long. I cannot pinpoint a specific time when the cloud came or when the storm started and it’s pointless. The business was sold and the building is in the midst of being sold. The business and it’s equipment were gone a couple weeks ago. I powered through that day until I had to take down some art on the wall. I felt this art was no long applicable to me, and it was part of the business. So, I gave it to the buyer and she cried. Then I cried. She feels bad, but is grateful for the opportunity at the same time. I can actually understand that, and I think she can understand my side too. She has been a business owner longer than I and I am sure she can think about what if it all came to a crashing end? The waiting was for things to be locked, sealed, finalized, papers signed…all of that. I think we have caught up on all of that. There are a few small details we are waiting for, title and closing date. This has me thinking forward, which we should not do. We, as humans have so much trouble living right here. The amygdala always taking us away to our past or taking us ahead in time to the future. That crazy little thing in our brain is a real pain in the ass. I was thinking ahead. I was thinking about the day when I would not have to get up and get ready to ” go to work”. I was thinking about this day and it was giving me such anxiety. I shook my head as if a dog shakes after his bath, to try to get it out of my head. It sort of worked because I had other things to deal with this week. (We are in a storm here, remember…) Honestly, though, what will I do that first day when I have no where to go? What will I do? That place was a creation of love and peace. It was a place of happiness and devotion. It was ours. Our blood,sweat, tears, passion, pain, anger, love, all those things and more were weaved into it. The loss we have experienced in our home in the past six months has been almost unbearable. Someone asked me this week how I was even standing up. I was asking myself that same question. The loss this week was raw and unbearable because of the stress we were already under. Now, the waiting I do, is for this storm to pass. It has to go. Maybe the day I am so full of anxiety over is the end of the storm? What do I do to keep my sanity through all of this? You are probably wondering about the storm and the kinds of precipitation it has brought to my life. I will share it. My time right now is precious and minutes are few. I keep hearing people tell me to take care of myself, I am a Sagittarius. I try to find time for myself to create but I am struggling with that. It’s blocked, probably from all the stress. So, I either listen to audio books, podcasts, or this. I thought, at least if I can get it out of my head I could get myself into a better place. Here’s to the amygdala and working against it…peace out, be back soon.