I'm grateful for: a day I couldn't have predicted; examining the wound; twins.

I've been reading other diaries in an attempt to get a start on what to write here. I've got a couple of things, neither of them particularly cheering to sort of get out of the way, so here it is then.

Thing one. I've only met one person in person that I first met on dland. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to have gone well. Given my social ineptitude I didn't know it hadn't gone well until afterwards reading in her place on dland she wrote about 'not having to feel guilty' and in general blasting me (no names named I think) because I had gushed about my kids, perhaps to excess. I love to brag about my children, who doesn't - question mark. But it apparently wasn't taken well, and that was, as far as I can tell, the end of that dland friendship. There were undoubtedly other things going on, but it doesn't change the fact that the only dlander I've met appears to have taken an instant dislike to me.

This doesn't stop me from wanting to meet other of my dland friends, because I am at best a slow learner, and often fail to get the lesson entirely. And thus I am extra sad that I won't be in the U.S. when Anna makes her mighty tour. Because you never know, I might be two for two, but then I might actually have a new experience in my life. I would like that, honestly.

Moving on to thing two.

It seems, when grieving, that as much as one wants to pain to go away and not to have to feel the loss and all that, there are times when one just can't stop picking at the wound. Trying to remember everything one can about the missed person, looking at their things or things associated with them to try and learn anything new that might have been missed. I've been doing that. I doesn't help with the hurt, but it's like a compulsion. This week I've managed to talk on the phone with a woman I knew back in the U.S., who says she knew my uncle.

I don't know. The man she describes and seems to have known acted nothing like I knew my uncle to be, and she is notoriously unreliable in her memory and in fact her ability to distinguish truth from its opposite, but talking with her I get to talk about him, and share what I can, recollections of good things, strange things, hard things, downright weird things, and bad things. I don't pretend to be okay and I don't have to worry about saying anything I probably shouldn't be telling people. In other words I am free to remember him as I like, as I need to. I've already said, it doesn't help with the pain.

I haven't done any crying. Maybe I've done with crying, at least for now. I have a friend who lost her babies, all of them, and we've been talking just about how people don't understand, although also a little bit about the difference between losing a child or children, and losing a parent or parent figure. There certainly are differences, but sometimes I think the biggest difference is how many memories you've got. I don't know, am certainly not an expert. Just musing.

So I've been spending a fair amount of time reopening the wound, examining it as closely as possible. Maybe this is going to help with the moving on. I don't say healing, it doesn't feel much like healing. I want it to become old pain is all, it's still too fresh, too raw. Maybe it's naive to imagine that it can be different, but I choose not to think so.

Okay, I sort of needed to get those things out, but there is other less heavy stuff for sure. No new news from D1's corner. I've had to stop calling her because it was just completely overloaded. RS is staying with them right now so I phoned her to keep up with the news, which, as I said, is no news.

Talking to RS has been a bit of a trial as well, because she only adds to my stress. I'm working to minimize it, but mostly by staying as distant as I can and still be in the loop.

I had an appointment for a root canal today and I blew it off. My tooth isn't hurting, and it was an added bit of stress and strain I did NOT need today. I may have to wait a long time for another appointment, but as I said the tooth isn't hurting and hasn't hurt. The chief dentist said I need a root canal based on an X-ray. So, I believe him, but if it's not hurting me and it can wait, then it can bloody well wait.

Which turned out to be a very good thing, because while I was NOT going to get mauled by the new root canal person at MaccabiDent, I was home when S1 came running in the house screaming "We have Twins!" :-) One of our dairy goats, actually the one we thought least likely to, has given birth to two of the cutest little teddy bears in the world. Excuse me, of course they are goat kids, but they just look like cuddly plush toys, begging to be hugged and squeezed. ;-) We've had goat kids before, and just stayed away from them today. We'll try to get up close with them tomorrow when we turn the goats out of the shed to graze. I took pictures.

I haven't seen them yet, but, if I ever manage to get things working, I will post some. Simply adorable babies. *big wide grin*

Also, today was the day for letting the moms and chicks out of the lulim, to get used to the yard and being a part of the flock. First step, get all the dogs in the house. Very important, as they won't bother the chickens, but the chicks they can't seem to control themselves around. Bad sentence structure, oh, well.

Second step, open the lulim. Third step, sprinkle grain outside the lulim but in clear sight of the hen -mamas. Then stand back and wait. The hen with one chick was outside the big lul in no time, and the chick followed her out for a little bit. Then they went back in after a most exciting field trip. The other, younger mom, with five chicks, hopped out of the smaller lul, and three of her chicks managed to follow her out. Then she went into the big lul and called to them from there. The two that hadn't made it out of the little lul were fished out by S1, and allowed to join their siblings. Unfortunately all of them had missed the turn that mama had made into the big lul, so they were on the other side of the chick wire with no idea how to get to her.

I suspect in the wild there was not chick wire to deal with.

Anyway, that was the fun part for me, I got to use an old bamboo stalk to 'fish' the chicks out of a corner, and then S1 made like a big scoop and shooed them towards the door of the lul. Success. Now we have all of our chickens and chicks together in the big lul. It was fun watching them all interact. First the younger mom, the one that had been in the smaller lul, spent some time pecking on every hen in the big lul that was smaller then her. After that the older mom pecked on the younger mom, to keep her in her place. Then the big rooster crowed a loud 'ENOUGH!' which called all the hens to order and stopped the pecking for the day.

The last order of the day, as it usually is, is for the roosters to each try and catch and mount as many hens as he can. The fight each other, sometimes interrupting themselves to grab a passing hen, and it's all rather wild, and funny. At long last it is late enough and they settle down on the roosts.

Hashem was really taking care of me today, and the weather was absolutely perfect, you couldn't have asked for a better day. So TH brought out an easy chair for me, and I sat in the yard with my animals and had the best time. It didn't clear away all of the stress and the misery, but it sure helped.

I didn't eat much, and probably didn't eat enough today, but I can't deal with that now. It's hard going to bed hungry. I slept oddly, three hours last night and then four hours roughly from ten am to two pm. I haven't managed to get out of my clothing - a linen dress - into something to sleep in, but I ate the thought of sleeping in a linen dress. Not comfortable, and not good for the dress. Hopefully I will manage to cope with that at least.

My keyboard is still a mess, which is not immediately obvious perhaps, but in addition to having to cut and paste to get a letter between 'x' and 'z' the 'h' often doesn't work, and the delete key is DOA. The challenges. I'm managing, but I think because tonight I was rather extraordinarily motivated.

The computer guy phoned TH and told him that he thinks that he CAN save my desktop computer, and won't even charge us for his labour because it's a new thing for him and he's happy to get to try doing it. So I may actually get my computer back. I'm too tired to be excited, but it *would* be very nice.

Is there any other news - question mark. I can't think of anything. It's just been too much and I am too tired and I really want to be able to just chill out, work with my kids, study hebrew, enjoy my animals and all of that. I hate having to distance myself from D1 and RS, but I've just had all the stress I can take just now.

All I can do is pray. Pray for Linda and the baby who's not born yet, pray for my grandchildren who are in danger of losing everything, pray for my daughter whose refusal to face reality may lose her her children and damage her and them beyond all human remedy. Pray for RS who can't find her backside with both hands because she is too busy trying to fix everything in the world that has nothing to do with her own life. And then (it's a tragicomedy) shrugging fatalistically about Hashem's will when in her life goes to hell - again.

Pray that all the chaos and stress and fear and pain is just the last gasp of present reality as it gives way to a new, better kind of living. Pray that Hashem, having brought us all this far, really is going to make it all work out - somehow. If I could see how, I wouldn't need Hashem.

Oh, and also pray for the clarity to remember that when I feel lonely, it really is all my own doing. It is awfully hard to remember that sometimes.

I totally 'get' intellectually, that when I am feeling unloved, that that is entirely a fiction manufactured by my own brain. I can't seem to 'get' it the same way about feeling lonely. For me loneliness has never been about being alone, it's been about feeling set apart. But I'm the one who does that.

...

*sigh*

I've had it with fighting with the keyboard. And, I must sleep. Goodnight.

I'm listening to the bubbles in my glass of seltzer. ;-)

:: Yesterdays : Tomorrows ::

~~~Last Five Entries~~~
Hi and goodbye - 2010-10-15
I'll be moving on - 2010-10-10
Gold membership and stuff - 2010-10-10
Decisions, decisions - 2010-10-07
Days to go - 2010-10-06