Metamorphosis

Hey DF,

Nah nah nah, you best get yourself to doctors and make sure you look after yourself. Girl!!! You need to relax and minimise that stress plus tiredness 100%. You and only YOU comes first in this life and I'm sorry but you have too take care of yourself. As I been at the ready with my bucked to help you clear all cr** after flooding I will be here with all the support and work on hand needed to make sure you are well and fully rested.

word of a scout!!! Lol..just give us a shout 🙂

Please be kind to yourself and take it easy.

hope to hear from you soon

S.x

Thanks guys and only when I look for my diary do I realise how long since I wrote anything.

I have been reading but with the heat and the stress of work my brain has scrambled by the time it comes to write.

A day of loss and bereavement training last week and a really good focus for me to understand the impact of the loss in my life. The recent family wedding had regurgitated all my feelings from the past and at my age there is a good heap of those.

Managed to get through the week and working gently through the bad stuff rather than shutting it out moronically in front of a machine.

My sister staying for a couple of days and have together attacked the garden (thanks for the offer Sandra) which with the help of the sewage in the floods, the weeds had grown shoulder high. Also found it in me to throw out all the spoiled stuff out there which is always my weakness - letting go. Did have much fun with the pressure washer though - little things please simple minds.

Stir fry, apple and elderflower fiz and the songbirds and river creatures settling for the night. Exhausted enough that I might sleep tonight and switch off from the stress of the next few working days.

So much sadness, struggle and heartbreak in these diaries is sometimes overwhelming but as they say 'hope springs eternal' so health, strength and happiness in sackfulls on its way to one and all.

Those that remember the Kenneths will be pleased to know that two mini Kenneths survived this year and were both tagged in the swan upping last week - hooray (do miss you Rach)

Hi Dragonfly,

I miss Rach too... I am pleased to here about the surviving Kenneths! I would love to get my hands on one of those power washers. Not sure why yet.... huh.. anyways, glad to hear that you are taking care of you and that your sister is helping you out with the yard work. Christ, I almost cut my legs off with the hedge trimmers yesterday! I'm in the house today. I put myself in time out. ha ha ha... Take Care friend. I laughed out loud at the image of myself moronically drooling in front of a machine. Oh well. Waving safely from my lazyboy. -joanxxx

Hi DF

Thank you for your support. You know I'm here for you too, just giv us a shout 🙂

Good to see you having some help with that grass. Was worried about you, but glad to see you are marching on as always.

Stay well and all the best

S x

Hi Dragonfly,

Hope your feeling better. Am wanting to write stuff about work, stress and health but am sure you know in yourself when its time to reassess your work life balance. I never seem to get it quite write I might add. Am either working and stressed and cycling like a loon, which ive done for the last 8 weeks or sitting at home twiddling my thumbs wondering what to do with my life. School term ended yesterday so am just entering a quieter phase with more time on my hands... which is good and not good in the same breath.

Good news about the Kenneths. Always puts a smile on my face. Look after yourself, be good to yourself. Try not to over do it. Easier said than done. Regards... S.A 🙂

Think I have been avoiding here and not sure why, maybe another attack of verbal constipation or maybe finding it too distressing reading so many heart rending stories and not able to respond with meaningful words as emotionally drained by my own life and work.

Off work this week, now that's a joke, called in for tomorrow a non working day anyway, as needed to give evidence in court , the worst ever part of my job but know the outcome will be worth it tomorrow.

Realising how out of balance my work and home life are, just as you say SA and how totally out of proportion the level of stress that drains me emotionally. I am good at my job, which at times is a bad thing as others know I will work over the odds to ensure a good outcome however time consuming and draining on my physical and emotional reserves. My own fault I need to learn to say no. Just know where these teenagers might end up if I don't enable them change their lives now - there but for fortune go you or I.

Spent time with my grandchildren this week, they found a book that you can record messages on and after they left I listened to them telling me they love me and my houseboat. Why would I ever in a million years risk losing that to sit in hot smelly room watching inane cartoon pictures randomly stop in a line, lose all my money so carefully saved for my studio and cry myself to sleep. Surely insanity at its height.

Instead I will communicate with the outside world this way having fed the Kenneths, read a book on how to write poetry (something I have always wanted to do but somehow felt intimidated by friends who are actual poets) and watch the world go by on the river.

My neighbours are swimming and there are mini sproglets in kayaks trying so hard to bump into my boat that I can hear them giggling from on deck and always one little one trailing along behind far too interested in the riverbank life to keep up with the others. My grandson found Toad of Toad Hall in my garden at the weekend and I have a hollow willow tree so methinks a poem must lie within me somewhere. Have an ostrich egg I will put inside the hollow as surely the size and shape of a dragons egg.

Well verbal diarrhea must have been caught as I am meandering all over the place but cathartic and related to gambling in my head as links to so many other things that act as triggers.

I wish so much strength to those who are struggling and happier times to come.

Hi DF

Lovely to read your update. Brought me peace and calmness. Really good to see you having lovely time with your grandchildren and enjoying life by the river. You are a star and if you like poetry you know that I am 100% behind you, I told you all along - you've got it in you my friend.

I have got much more to say, but maybe picked wrong time for posting lol. Just after nightshift. Thank you so much for your kind words, I am sorry my post was so negative and I fully understand how hard it is to read them along those lines...but, as our missed dear friend Rach always said - good, bad and the ugly - they all have to come out.

I wish you all the best, may peace, happiness and that lovely scenery surrounding you brings you so many amazing memories to look back to.

Hugs my friend xx

Hey girl and hope all is good with you. Guess i avoid coming here too sometimes and not because I've been gambling but sometimes just creates them urges for me. LOL yeah I know this place is about anything but gambling and just guess i got a backwards nature. LOL Hope all is going well your way and only keeps getting better. Take care girl.

Have posted some mega depressed entries in the past myself Sandra so no one should ever worry about what they write in their own diary as cathartic for them. Also know what you mean Soul as even thought about on line gambling after reading on here, something I have never been interested in before.

Have been reading loads about Native American Indians recently ( a guy at work used to work with a tribe) and so identify with their culture and ideas about nature. Wish I had spent more time with them when in the states years ago.

I am still searching for my spirit stone wherever I go, have some lovely ones but just not THE stone yet.

Love this -

Hold on to what is good,

Even if it's a handful of earth.

Hold on to what you believe,

Even if it's a tree that stands by itself.

Hold on to what you must do,

Even if it's a long way from here.

Hold on to your life,

Even if it's easier to let go.

Hold on to my hand,

Even if someday I'll be gone away from you.

Pueblo Prayer

Sad that their culture has been tainted by gambling as the casinos have opened in their lands.

Have planned many trips to the casino in my head over the past few weeks but so far my guardian angel has diverted me from actually getting there, he /she must be exhausted as am I as spent nearly six hours driving seventy miles in London today - bliss to get back to my hide away on the river.

Thinking of everyone but hands painful so will write another time.

Peace, health and strength to all.

Hi Dragonfly,

I really enjoyed reading ur last post....true words!

U r doing gr8 🙂

Stay strong xx

Yup them Indian casinos are popping up all over here in the states. They just keep building on to the ones by me so guess it means they ain't hurting anyway. LOL yeah lot of different tribes in this state and their fighting amongst each other as to who can build where and their taking away would be profits from the others. LOL guess that don't really care about the problems gambling causes and just out for own.

Just popping into say hi and hope things are well with ya.

Good to hear from you Charlotte and so pleased for you after all the hard work and it is so sad Soul that these cultures are eaten away by our greedy society these days.

Thinking about what Joan says in her letter to Ed about control. I messed up again yesterday but once again damage limitation in place so didn't actually lose any money but exploring my reasons.

Had a dreadful week workwise, another six hours driving in the heat on the motorway yesterday inching along in gridlocked traffic knowing I would be late for my meeting.

I am in control at work, have to be totally and utterly all the time, the mask very seldom slips. The same applied throughout so many times in my life, looking after two small children on my own, financing our lives after my divorce etc etc. I have visited this before as even my GP said many years ago that with my physical illness and other factors in my life she is not surprised I have sought a release, a method to block everything for a short respite period, just unfortunate it became addictive and could have been much, much worse as I dabbled in other things first.

A big part of me, once the mask is removed, longs for the loss of control, the freedom to do what I know internally is wrong and say to the world f*** off and every so often, if I can manage this and limit the damage, which I know is almost impossible, it will happen.

I will continue as always to search for other ways to diffuse the feelings, open the escape valve, but until that time I am not going to tell myself I am s**t anymore because I cannot be perfect, I could be so much worse.

Read this recently and maybe under the mask I am just searching for the holy grail and wondering where my dreams have gone.

'You have to look deeper, way below the anger, the hurt, the hate, the jealousy, the self-pity, way down deeper where the dreams lie, son. Find your dream. It's the pursuit of the dream that heals you.'

BILLY

- Billy Mills (father), Oglala Lakota (1938-)

Hey girl,

I would never take your posts wrong way. I know why we are here and that's the main thing - recovery. As long as good days overweights the low ones, we are truly making a progress 🙂

Just want you to look after yourself, that soul still needs healing, stay on recovery road it is a good medicine for the start.

Hope you hav a peaceful weekend, take care

S x

Well hey girl and good to hear ya got sometime to get at those things that ya wanna get at. Did a little of that myself Thursday and Yup, Friday was a wasted day of doing nothingness. Guess I got few calls and text messages saying the school I work at gym caught on fire early Friday morning and quite the mess going on over there. Yup work on maintenance there and just so happens to be the area I clean. Guess my weekend is being cut short cause yeah school opens in 3 weeks and they hired out a restoration company to work 24/7 getting rid of the smoke damage. Basically going back on my 3rd shift as of tonight and so much for summer hours. Guess It's a hour of time and a half pay for me and 7 hours of double time once that clock hits midnight so worth it pay wise. But yeah really sooner be lost in that nothingness I guess. LOL guess main thing no one was hurt in that fire but the gym by the sounds of it a total loss. So yeah has the school up in arms at the molment with where to go and what to do for that part of activities. Guess that gym was used heavily through out the school year and one of the bigger gyms in district so they hosted a lot of different events other schools couldn't handle. guess they still have a smaller gym that I'm assuming just received smoke damage so still have something to work with I guess but nothing what their use to.

But yeah vacation cut short over here and duty calls I guess. Hoping things are going well on your end and nothing but good things coming your way.

Take it easy Soul, don't work too hard but double time sound good, I only get toil if I work over and never time to take it back. Have a wonderful holiday Sandra making family memories.

A weepy day today, maybe the huge moon last night is affecting my mood as I watched it reflecting on the rippling water for ages last night, so beautiful.

Shouldn't be sad as life is good, I have everything I need but very worried about my grown up children. All beyond my control to make their lives happier when random events and life choices impact on them. Makes my stomach hurt and my brain want its anesthetic dose of moronic escapism in front of a machine. Instead I will stay home and accept there are many things I cannot change in this life but can still make the right choice to not make them worse.