So, I can’t give blood. I spent the night and morning worrying about it only to be told I can’t. My iron is too low. This comes as no surprise either. I’ve had too low iron lots of times. During every pregnancy and various times between. In fact I should have thought this might happen. My iron was low as a child even. I don’t think my mind and body work together well. My body can’t keep up with my mind sometimes and sometimes my body works too fast for my mind. I don’t think I metabolize like some. I wonder if iron in our bodies is like iron in soils. Clingy. That it can’t be absorbed well in heavy dense clay soils. Plants can’t get it. It’s too clingy and binds to clay. It messes with the other nutrients in soils to make plants not be able to adequately get them either. Then plants look pale and yellow. Is my iron clinging to something in my body? Is it clinging to my grief? Am I that dense? That heavy?

I burst into tears when the lady told me. She checked one hand then tried the other hand. I find it interesting that one side was significantly lower than the other. My left hand was lower. Why? Is it because I’m right hand dominant? I felt the need to have her prick every finger and see how different each finger was. Except I really don’t like a finger prick. I would rather be stabbed. Which is exactly what it is. On my finger tip. I use my finger tips. When I returned to work my two finger tips burnt when fertilizer got on them from being stabbed. I also would rather not be stabbed. But had someone said. They will need to prick your finger to check your hemoglobin I wouldn’t have gone.

It’s hard to cry in a mask. She asked if I was ok. I said no. My dad died and I needed to do this because I can’t do anything else. Couldn’t do anything else. She said it’s not uncommon to feel you want to give to save lives when one is gone. Then told me all the statistics of how many lives I could save when giving blood. It was 3. That’s a lot of people to keep alive potentially. Except I can’t help keep anyone alive, just me. Her eyes were kind. I wish I could have seen the slight twist of her mouth when she said this. That little move that it makes when you relate. She related. She understood that my grief took me all the way to here. To give. Because I lost. And it felt taken.

When in doubt we give. When you give the universe gives back. You don’t know it’s coming. Or that was my plan. To plan to give so I receive. Because I have a very heavy solid dense void right now. From something being taken. An empty feeling that is really very full and heavy. My iron should have been high. I feel full of heavy iron. And empty all at the same time. The universe took from me. I should be given something back. Or maybe I have and I can’t see it or feel it. I’m still kind of mad. That’s how a relationship works. I have to be mad. So I can be not mad again. That’s where love comes from. Resolved anger. And vice versa. It’s give and take.

So I left with a goal to increase my iron. Which will increase my lack of bowel movement. I intentionally avoid foods high in iron as they don’t seem to want to move through me right. Hence the low iron. Even when I increase it it doesn’t change. To make a change I will also need a supplement. With a stool softener in it. But I don’t have general feelings of low iron like fatigue or a metal taste or a craving to eat laundry soap, so I likely won’t do it. Just to give blood. Or, I will over do it and get so constipated I will require an enema. Been there.

So I’m back to square one. In the giving area. Without it being money and plain old kindness, or a cup of coffee from behind me in line I am running out of ideas. I don’t have much time to volunteer. But maybe could except when I think of volunteering I think of not being able to. I don’t like just a few random hours of helping an organization. I want to control the entire program. I’m a terrible volunteer or an amazing one. I will work from free.

I still haven’t gone to the store for cream. I just am not in the mood to go I to a place so full of fear for one item. I used to. Now I would probably pay extra to have someone else do it for me. I stopped in the gas station and bought whipped cream for 5 dollars for cream for my coffee. I was thinking of getting a few little creamers from their coffee station but they don’t have a coffee station anymore. I had not been in a gas station yet to learn this. We can no longer get a fountain soda and coffee from them. But can touch everything else in the store. Add this to my thorough confusion of the rules of covid.

The whipped cream makes my coffee quite fancy. Foamy. Like I paid 5 dollars for one at Starbucks because I did pay 5 dollars. Just for cream.

I felt free yesterday after letting go of the business Facebook page. Just one day of it and I felt liberated. Same as I did from when I attempted it personally. Which I only did to make my ex mad. Who wasn’t my ex yet. I knew he was doing things he wanted to find himself so I started caring about myself. I signed up and found out exactly who I am not. Which is the best lesson to learn.

In some free time. Yes I had a little. I researched Roly polies. Just for fun. In this free time before I would have gone online to see what everyone thinks of us. Now I don’t care. If you want to see my cat come see it. If you want to see my beautiful greenhouse and plants come see me. Life online isn’t solid proof of life.

Anyway, Roly polies are interesting little crustaceans. More related to a shrimp than an ant. After that they have a small list of things they do that is not just rolling up into a small ball which is called conglobate. They eat their feces. Which has a fancy word of coprophagy. No one knows why they do this. It doesn’t seem like something to understand why anyone would do this let alone that it has its own word. It’s just known. Sometimes we just need to know and accept not understand. They don’t have to pee either. Their little Roly bodies don’t need to eliminate ammonia. They drink from both ends of their bodies. They have gills but can’t breath underwater. They eat decayed material and deposit it back as a nutrient to the soil. I wonder if they can be anemic?

See I have so much time now. To learn things.

If life hadn’t happened I would have been a forest entomologist. I would have kept going to study the bugs of the forests. Life happened. Because life happens. I couldn’t stop it. It’s also still happening so technically I could still make this happen. College would be easier for me as a single mother if it went only remote for awhile. I wouldn’t need much more. I applied and went through the process a couple years ago but then life kept happening so I kept letting it happen and not this. It’s a simple matter of prioritizing. Life will always present something to happen.

Because life is happening.

I am giving blood today. First time ever. I didn’t sleep last night worried I didn’t drink enough water to be able to give blood. People said drink water the day before. Well the day before I worked in a hundred degree greenhouse. I didn’t drink enough to account for even that. I don’t want to give blood and pass out. So I drank water all through the night. So much I peed all night also. I also kept trying to will myself to hold it so I would have plenty of hydration. I don’t want to drink so much water I will have to pee while giving blood.

My bladder isn’t designed to hold a lot of pee. Not just from multiple births either just it’s regular size is not regular. I also think water goes right though me. I don’t think I absorb it like I’m supposed to. I drink water and have to pee in about ten minutes. I don’t have time to pee all the time.

Water just doesn’t taste like anything. I’ve gotten better at drinking water through my backpacking. I figure if I don’t drink water I’ll die. I have to remind myself to drink water. Remind myself to stay alive. I spend too much time thinking of who I can get to drink water. Who can I keep alive? Just me. I can just offer basic recommendations for survival to others.

So far this morning I feel like I drank too much water. I’m not sure what hydrated feels like other than not thirsty. I’m just not thirsty. I expected to look more plump and less wrinkled somehow. Feel more full of blood than normal. But I just feel like I have to pee a lot and that I don’t want to drink anything else.

I made homemade hot chocolate instead of coffee so I didn’t have to pee extra. I also wasn’t sure if coffee seemed an appropriate drink for a morning before giving blood. No wine at all last night. It thins the blood. I want good thick ready to be used blood. I am A- which for me means nothing other than I carry a card that says I have the rh factor for when giving birth to children. I don’t know if my blood type is rare or not. It sounds like a good grade to me.

I had to close our business Facebook page. I knew it would be coming. I spent years building it to a platform consistent with what my intentions were and it turned into a place people deemed appropriate to debate politics around a global pandemic. I gave it some space for awhile to see if people would behave then posted about leaf spots and tree damage to only wake to messages and posts of masks. Again. Not in keeping with the tune of the page. I’m the boss. I’m also protective by nature so I’m going to protect it for awhile until people can act like grown ups again. Which may never happen.

My therapist said this was a healthy boundary to set. I have laid out the rules and the meaning of the page and it’s use several times. This is me saying if you can’t treat it like I want then I’m going to set a line for now. She thinks I could be able to do this in my personal life. I disagree. I need more therapy.

I had my first in person meeting with her yesterday. I struggled to not ask her how she was doing and how she is handling things. I often forget who’s role is who’s. We talked about conversation. Which could be also having conversation. How the flow of talking can be. That it is back and forth. Not one silent partner. I was used to this because it was safe. It was my normal. But dysfunctional. So anything that feels a little uncomfortable for me right now is normal. People who talk to me and allow me to talk back is normal. I don’t have to keep talking to try and make them talk. I also don’t even have to try to talk at all.

I’ve been worried about who will teach my son to be a man. How can I if I am not one? My dad can’t because he is dead. His dad can’t because he still doesn’t know himself. His older brother can’t for the same reason. He needs a model. Someone to look up to and model for him on how to be a man. If I could go back I would read books to him when his mind was spongy and help him absorb man stuff and not books on counting fish, and moons talking. Is it too late? Can I now. Sneak in at night and read to him about man things. Like fixing stuff and fishing, and manners and treatment of women. Or can hé learn these things still from me even though I am a girl. Can he learn by seeing who I allow as a man to be in my life? He just needs like a big brother. I need like an early college student to take him fishing. I can’t fish. It’s too hard. I’ve worked through this problem already too.

I know I’m modeling good for my girls. I hear my youngest say on my own all the time. She is 6. She figured this out in just a few years where it took me 42. Except I once knew and forgot for awhile. I’ve heard my dads stories of me as a child. He says that my youngest was like raising me again. She is stubborn, independent, strong willed and curious. She is going to be a fantastic woman.

Back to this blood thing. I am nervous about it. I’m hoping to forget about it and nearly miss the appointment so I’m not thinking of it all morning. I don’t know how long it will take. I don’t know if I will be able to watch. I don’t know if it will hurt. I don’t know if I will even be able to. But I need to give something. I accidentally signed up for a living donor program for my kidneys awhile back when I thought I was signing up for living organ donor for the liver. I can’t donate my liver. It carries the gene my dad had that was why he needed a new one. But in the end it was kidney donation I had signed up for. It’s also like a state away. I haven’t addressed this yet. I feel bad removing myself from it. It may not even really be a list. It may just be that I made the contact. Once the coronavirus is better they will likely email me and ask for further info. Then I will explain my dad died and I feel a desperate need to give an organ but unsure now if I made this decision at the right time and under the right circumstances. That grief makes you do silly things when you do what you want to grieve when you don’t know what to do to grieve so you give. They will understand.

I am full of what ifs and all over the places this morning. It’s probably even worse since I am also over hydrated and it is all moving around floating through my body of things to worry about. I am over absorbed with things and water. My eyeballs are wetter than normal. I’m not even crying. Good thing they are taking blood from me I need rang out. My sponge is full. I can’t be anymore of a woman than I am and I can’t also be anymore of anything for anyone. Especially a man for my son. I can just be his mother.

My coffee is just going to be no good this morning. I hate going to be the store now and need creamer. I was actually given a ton of powdered cream when I was given a bunch of other strange things. Can’t find it. I probably gave it away. It’s just not the same as half and half. Now my coffee has milk in it. Just plain old 2 percent not even whole. It’s not creamy enough. I am going to taste the coffee. It even looks weird. Like coffee,not coffee with cream. But I am desperate for a cup of coffee.

Im feeling desperate. That’s what it is. I am desperate to be held and touched again. I am trying too hard and in ways I never would. I am not about to sign up for online “dating”. That was a nightmare when I was desperate once before. Someday I’ll write about it. Not today. It’s not in my mind. Except what not to do when desperate.

The universe is supposed to be taking care of me. I have been taking care of myself all this time and now I am getting impatient because I want company. I had a pretty uneventful marriage until the end when he couldn’t express his needs and found them elsewhere. I also couldn’t express mine. But found them no where.

Until then he was just kind of there. Just this other person who did things in my vicinity. We sort of never had anything to do with each other. I kept thinking I was failing and I started to really try. Like demand I do things for him. Which apparently worked since he didn’t like to do them himself. Then It just became the norm. I did everything for everyone but myself. We never traveled together. I didn’t know my style of music and only his and when I would listen to something other than his I was clearly seeing someone else. Liking someone else’s music. Not trying to learn what I liked. This is just the tip of the iceberg of how it slowly became. It snuck up on me. The worse it got,the harder I tried, the farther away from myself I got.

So much kept me there. We had 4 kids together one with special needs. The less care she required the more I started to see. And not see it.

I didn’t wake wanting too work through my failed marriage. I have slots of time and money spent with a professional on this topic. It is also starting to slowly thaw out and keeps surfacing. It’s a loss. It’s bound to surface. Grief drags it all to the surface. Every lost pet, baby, grandparent, job, love is dragged up from the bottom of that place we put them. Because I’m grieving with a loss I can’t cope with. I’m desperate to move past grief. To let it sink again.

I woke worried about my daughter eating herself to death. She is eating everything in site. She is grief eating. She doesn’t understand her loss of her grandpa. Except she does. She just can’t talk about it or express it like some. So she eats. Everything. She is sensitive to weight gain as it is. We were also walking and hiking so much during the shut down. Then I started having to work like crazy and haven’t been able to walk her. I am planning to hide food today. She got furious that I took a whole grain pop tart from her. I don’t even know why I have a whole grain pop tart. I don’t think of nutritional value when I buy those. I rarely buy them. She will be pissed for about a week of this hiding food. Then she will forget. Change the thoughts is all it takes. I need to make her think of something besides food.

She wakes and asks about lunch and dinner and plans. She lays out her meals on the counters. Spaghetti Os and a can of corn and fruit, various snacks to fill the void until that time, a container of orange juice. All laid out to remind me to feed her. Her day revolves around whether or not she will make it to lunch or dinner. Maybe in her mind some people don’t get to have lunch and dinner anymore. Like her grandpa. Or that that morning he woke he didn’t get to lunch. Barely even breakfast. I can only guess what she is thinking. It’s a good thing I’m her mother because I love to guess what others think not actually know. That’s saying I’m not a mind reader is a challenge for me. I love a good challenge. She is challenging.

Yes my coffee is gross. I should have made hot chocolate or just a giant glass of water. Or nothing.

I just woke frustrated that no one is here. I keep listening to a song that is burned into my mind that people would rather die than be without someone. Doesn’t that seem a little dramatic? Or is it romantic? I’m pretty sure if someone told me they would rather die than be without me I would run for the mountains. It would panic me to no end. I would never ask that of another human. To take a bullet for me. Or to chose death over his time with himself. It’s ridiculous. My ex left to fill a void he didn’t feel like telling me he needed filled. He took care of himself. How can I blame him? To be fair I wish he would have at minimum said hey I need to leave. That is my pain not the actual reason. It was the leaving.

My very first thought when I found out about her was about her. What made her so unsure of herself that she did this? Found my husband online on a site dedicated to married people to meet. States away. She sounded so desperate. I was worried for her. He even told me her husband was abusive and controlling. I feared for her life. I asked if she needed help. That’s how I am. It confused him. It took me years and still is taking years to see that I never thought of myself in that moment. I can’t put myself back in that room next to the piano by the doorway of that conversation and make it change. In my mind I will have always worried about this woman who looking back was me. A version of me.

I don’t want to feel desperate. Impulsiveness comes from this feeling. I rarely think first when speaking to others. I just blurt out first thoughts. I never feel there is time to think and when I take the time to think I can feel the appréhension of the other converser of why I am hesitating then I think of this and can’t answer at all. Then I panic at what I said days later. That’s where I am today. In panic of things said I didn’t think first of. Because I didn’t have time before it flew from my mouth. Because I am desperate.

Someone joked. “No wonder you are alone.” This bothers me. For two reasons. One, she said alone and not on my own. She didn’t get my therapists memo that I am not alone. I am on my own. Because she doesn’t really know me. Two, who says that? What is her issue with herself unresolved to look at me as not on my own but alone.

So many people keep trying to encourage me to stop the thoughts. There are ways Im told. I’ve never tried weed. Period. I only recently discovered that a skunk smell is weed. I called and complained that a skunk had gotten into our basement laundry room. Thé maintenance man thought I was the one smoking it likely. Until he met me and said maybe I should be. Growing up my parents did. They hid it not well at all. They are hippies. Were. My dad died so isn’t anymore. Unless you stay one even when dead. He is still me dad dead so he is also still a hippie just dead. I loved the smell. It was sweeter than this skunk. I used to find the parts used and things in their dresser drawer just to know. I was curious but also not. I don’t know that I still am curious or not. I just know that people think I should. I bother other people that much. One of my friends said I make him want to drink. Nice friend right? I don’t make me want to drink.

I would love to get great sleep every night but things happen in the night at my house that require alertness. Awareness and control of myself. I wish I had a life that didn’t require this but my cards are dealt and given. Is that right? That saying? Or is it I’ve played the cards dealt? Either way I don’t even play cards. No one to play with. I haven’t been taught.

As desperate as I am feeling I still could never picture someone here. Like right now. What would they be doing? Would they be up in my space while I write. I would need two houses. I don’t even have one house. Would they need their lunch packed. Would they be furious I am too afraid to go the store to buy cream and be around all the people afraid of me and themselves. Would they need me first thing? What if I couldn’t be needed? What if I needed them and they couldn’t be needed? How does it work? Would they bring me a fountain soda? Would they remember me? Do I care? I don’t know.

I’m full of what ifs from being desperate. It’s probably a good thing I have my first in person therapy today. I need therapy today. Or Im going to do something impulsive. To not feel desperate but it won’t work. I will be more desperate. Then impulsive, then desperate again.

This week will mark some significant changes. The country is opening more. Specifically my state. We are one of the last. Our governor seems just that. A governor. Controlling. We don’t have a great track record of governing. We are likely still on that track. I also don’t really follow the government. I didn’t even know who this guy was until this corona business. I told my dad “who is this guy making all these rules!?” He says. “Thats your governor my dear.” So now I know.

I’m tired of seeing his face. I just am. He looks smug with his furrowed serious eyebrow trying to look business and bossy. I am to the point I picture him as a bobble head. Just kind of bobbling. He ruined my grief. He made it so I had to go down avenues to grieve my dad that didn’t really help me grieve my dad. I should have been able to pack up and go. Be on my own for a few days in the woods. That’s just what I do. Take it to the woods and I haven’t gotten to and it’s been weeks and I can feel it burning right through me. I am close to losing it. I need this outlet in my good days. So the fact I can’t access them like I should on bad days is like torture.

I am displacing my anger. I’m sure of it. It’s not him a blame. But it’s him I blame today. So I don’t have to blame who? Me? Or someone else? The universe is who. God is who. I want to blame who I believe or don’t believe is responsible. No good will come of questioning the moves made by a higher power. But I can question moves made by my local government. I can’t do anything about it currently, but I can vote. And I will be voting. Educated and everything.

Phew! That’s seemed so stuck up in my mind. It’s been eating at me all through the night. My park I would normally go to in the summer is closed indefinitely. Not about to reopen or anything. And I googled this before I went to bed. I’m not supposed to google before bed. Or really ever. It gets stuck.

I googled whether or not I could own a pet owl. I can not. There are bird laws protecting them. There are actually a lot of bird laws in general not just specific to owls. I can’t even put a feather from some birds in my hair. I’m not sure why I would since I am not currently an Indian just have a little in my blood.

Anyway, I found a baby owl. She had been abandoned in my mind. Simply because I didn’t see her mother anywhere for a couple of days. If it had been a human baby I would be allowed to intervene. Not keep the baby but help and report. The owl, even when reported can’t be moved unless it’s a specific trained person. Now I want to be this trained person. You aren’t supposed to get involved with nature in this manner. The mom owl could be teaching this baby something important like how to be an owl. She is probably watching from afar as some strange human approaches the baby. Baby is to just sit and blink cutely and maybe hiss but not approach. Mom taught her this. Stay put she said. Same rules apply when lost as a human child. Stay put. Mom will find you. Maybe blink and hiss.

I wanted this owl. Just so it would stay alive and I would be certain it did. There just is no certainty like this. I don’t know that I could have kept up on feeding an owl. Same as a baby deer I once found abandoned but likely not abandoned. I left it. I was 20 miles into a 40 mile hike. I don’t know if I thought I was going to carry a baby deer that far. Or what. Again if it was a human I wouldn’t have felt I had a choice. I left the deer to let nature take its coarse. It’s 2 years later and I still wonder about this deer.

Needless to say I won’t be having a pet owl. The rules say so. It was cute and it had the most interesting eyes I’ve ever seen. not the eyeballs itself but the eyelids and the lashes. The lashes looked like fake lashes.

I have plenty of pets. For now. I told a random stranger I missed my chickens. Because that’s what I do now. Share. But not quite share. Occasionally over share. I imagine I left him feeling confused why I would say this. I do miss the chickens, but I don’t. Mine were mean and chased me and my dogs. They gave me more grief than eggs. And right now I have enough grief and can buy eggs at the store a block away. But I miss the whole collective memory around them.

I miss the country. I am just not a city girl. I am enjoying it for its convenience but the convenience is wearing thin. I have zero problems now thinking of having to drive a few miles more to a store. I can’t see the sky. I can’t hear the woods. I can’t wonder to the creek anymore. I can’t go to my garden when I can’t sleep. I can’t do so much.

I dreamt of my old life last night. It was intertwined with my no sleep, too hot from scorched sunburnt skin, trouble breathing from anxiety building up over grief unresolved. But I eventually dreamt. Which I suppose means I eventually slept. I went to bed angry over googled news. News of a park closed in a state that isn’t even mine. Then woke and blamed my governor. It’s also federal land. This decision is bigger than local. I also agree. But don’t. I was thinking of myself and my needs. I’m supposed to be doing this. But when it comes to the natural world it comes first. Not me. It is there for me not me there for it.

If all the parks open too fast they will do just that. Open too fast. The use will exceed their use. The ground trampled. The litter I can’t even imagine. Trees destroyed. Rocks carved into to mark moments in time. People falling off of cliffs for photos by the hundreds. Who knows what will happen. The island needs to be left closed. Safe. There are sensitive research programs going on. The land will have time to rest. The wolves time to adjust. The rare flowers time to bloom. They still bloom even if no one sees them. Everyone will be coming out of the woodwork soon. Like caged animals they are going to flee to open land. I don’t blame them. But won’t be joining them. Soon places like the grocery store and my garden center will have less people. Keep my island closed and I will wait for it.

I slept better than I didn’t. I wore myself out yesterday gardening. Making a garden for my dad, my mom and myself. I have never felt so alive. I just don’t need a day of rest. I can feel my sore muscles. My hands hurt from weeding. My cuticles destroyed. Broke nails. Sunburnt. Blister and splinters. Purpose of life. But I woke angry. I will have to watch my mouth and my mind today. Even though I’m not really angry about my park closed or the governor of my state. I am angry my dad died.

It said workshop. When I turned on my blue tooth. It’s been on all this time waiting for someone to connect and be in the workshop and listen.

I didn’t even know he had this. I just knew music came from somewhere. Even as an adult my dads music just kind of came from him. Not anything else. Just from somewhere and everywhere.

This might be the closest I’ve felt to him since he died. It is also the farthest away I’ve felt from him. Because he isn’t in here. It’s the saddest I’ve been since he died. Like I can’t move sad. Everything else is standing and sitting still. No power saws moving anymore. No more violins clamped down. No more opening and closing toolboxes. So I should just sit still too. Just sit and collect dust. Sit and connect with my dad and disconnect from the world. From the chaos around me. The chaos that seems to always be around me.

My dad collects, collected, the weirdest things. Metal tool boxes. Clamps. Sandpaper. Violins broken waiting for new bodies. He seemed to like cans of stain. Wood. Lots of chunks of wood every where. Old cabinets thrown out by others to be turned into a place to store stains and clamps and sandpaper’s. Some still lay waiting to be hung and filled.

I’ve never really looked in his workshop. Just been in it. It was a place he was to be found. I would scoop piles of sawdust into tiny mountains. Stack boards for him. Pull nails from boards hé found in others workshops. Workmen trade wood things. While music blared in the background from somewhere.

It’s the smell of it that gets me. It’s a strange mix of what can be best described as his purpose of life.

I never want to dust it or move anything. At least never for now. His hand print is still on the tool box. Maybe I can make a mold? Like you do with dogs and cats? No it’s too late. Also that would be creepy to have the mold of my dads hand. I can just remember them. Fixing things. Walking me across the street once. Wiping a tear once. Starting a mower once for me. Bringing me the tools to change a tire then watch while I change the tire. Showing me how to hold my hands on the piano. Showing me how to play. To set up a tent. To tie down a boat on the car. To paddle. How to hold the paddle. How to cut the boards. How to saw. How to drive. Well, how to try and drive. The list is too long. The memories too long. They are there though. Not stuck in frozen memory land I was once stuck with in.

Now I’m stuck in the garage connected to my dad through his workshop. Stuck back in time. To the smell of sawdust. The sound of the metal toolbox opening and closing. The sounds of the saws. The sounds of the music coming from the everywhere he was.

I love hearing my music though his place. It is strange. It’s just coming from somewhere and everywhere. He always had the best systems to play music. I just knew he did. The way it sounds. Like it’s off the walls and moves you. You can feel it not just hear it.

I came to make a garden. To grow through this all. I have tomatoes I’ve been wanting to grow so I can tell people how they grow. A new pepper we bought to sell. New yellow squash and a new variety of watermelon. This is going to be a trial garden. Not a victory garden or a grief garden. Maybe it’s all of them. Maybe it’s just a garden.

It’s ready. I have tilled it 3 times and weeded and tucked the chicken wire back up. Then stepped away and accidentally connected to the workshop. Now I’m stuck in the workshop. Staring at wood dust and clamps. Accidentally connected to my dad. Accidentally disconnected from the garden. But so connected it demanded I connect. It popped up. It said connect to workshop. I clicked it and connected. So for a little while I could disconnect from so much more.

What’s wrong with my tree?

More people are noticing trees. Just in general more people are noticing so many things in their yards they didn’t once or haven’t in years. They are looking at their lawns since their lawns have been their perimeter for so long.

What better time to plant a tree right? It’s always a good time to plant a tree….

You find the place you want one after days of exploring your lawn. Spring is a great time to plant trees we tell you.

Will you plant it yourself? Maybe. You never have.

You decide to mark this moment in your life with a tree. The kids can help. The neighbors will watch from a distance. Plan their own planting. Your neighborhood will become a forest in years to come. You will play music and dig. Watch a tree grow. Grow life.

Now that it’s in the ground you watch it. Like a hawk. Every leaf.

Is it growing yet? When will I notice? You notice when you quit watching. We say.

What is this spot on this leaf will it be ok?

Yes. The leaf was bruised in a way.

Is it being chewed on by a bug, I bet it’s that beetle from the Ash.

We explain why your maple does not present with emerald ash borer.

How can I protect it from the cold? It looks like it got cold.

We just really can’t. It did get cold.

Hope for the best. Give adequate care through its growing season. Adequate water, but not too much. Turn off irrigation that could hit this tree and drain to this hole you dug. Your lawn will bounce right back. Watering needs of a lush green lawn outweigh the needs of a new tree. Fertilize after the first year. Play games around it. Cook meals around it then sit under the shade in years to come. Just a thought…

We have been seeing frost damage to newly planted trees. It presents itself as a tree dying to many. It is likely just injured.

The leaves look like lettuce left too long in the fridge. These leaves are starting to crisp and fall. Specifically sensitive Japanese maples. Just look at their leaf if looks like lace.

It takes trees awhile to show the signs of a frost damaged tree. The leaf is full of moisture, then gets cold then warms up and dries up. Then falls. We like when leaves fall.

This is the trees defense to injury occurred. The key is to check the tree for viable buds to produce a second set of leaves. This next set may be smaller. They may also have ends with damage to this new set of leaves. With proper attention the tree will survive.

I have not attached a picture as their are so many different trees and too many ways they look when cold. Send me pictures of leaves or trees if you have any concerns.

This is what I miss? I haven’t been writing about plant care to so many. People who rely on my plant care. I dreamt this. I slept. I finally slept. I knew I would I just needed to get to my day I needed to sleep. I worked through a lot of mental anguish this week. I wore myself out over sweatshirts not smelling like my dad. Crushes on staff. Wishing to be held by strangers. Grief so compounded I became lonely. Grief so lonely I made new boundaries.

People are talking to me. Telling me things like their names and things about them. Why? People do this? Why me? Why now? Was I not approchable before? Not pretty before? Not me before? My name is so and so? And you are? I don’t know. But I do. I say my name. That’s enough. I say I miss my chickens in the country. Why would I tell a stranger this? Is this me? It seemed to be.

I tell people things. Once someone tells me something they struggle with it opens a door to say you struggle to. It’s a common bond we all struggle. It’s sharing the struggle that is the struggle.

Cold trees is a thing that has been just been on my mind. Because it’s my job to think of trees. It’s also just me. I think of them more than I think of myself usually. Until my dad died. Then I couldn’t see the forest for the trees. I was overwhelmed with details of loss and death not life and death. Just plain old death. Everyone dies has been a theme because someone I loved died. It brings to light that so will everyone and everything. Even trees. I lost hope. I forgot that it’s a circle. That with the loss comes gain and growth. Especially in the forest. I’ve seen it. I can see it before the forest is gone. It’s below the forest. Waiting to take over and grow when the light can be seen.

I just couldn’t see the whole situation well. It doesn’t change it. To see it today and tomorrow I may be right back to not seeing it again. I’m a forest girl and a tree girl and can see both things separately and also together as one. When I can see them. I just couldn’t see anything but death. no light.

I haven’t been doing my job. Not all of it. I have parts I’m avoiding. The world has gotten too mean and impatient. I am the admin for our social media sites which is funny because I can’t even do them myself. Not actually do them, well sometimes, but I can’t separate myself from the world when I can view the world at the touch of a screen. I get lost. Guess what? I’m lost. So I know. If I go down that avenue I won’t come back easily. So I avoid. Avoidance isn’t always a negative. It can be an unhealthy way to cope yes. So I’m told. But it can also be a coping tool to avoid. By avoiding. So I don’t have to avoid for the wrong reasons. By avoiding. I’m making this up. Avoidance is exactly what it is. Not facing something hard. I try often to convince myself that it’s healthy. I have convinced myself that by avoiding social media right now is keeping me and everyone else safe. I’ve leaned into this feeling.

But, I’m in real time. Where I belong. Where I wish so many others would be too. When I make a post about plants it takes seconds for it to be seen and commented on. Like a vulture to a carcass. It’s odd. It’s like they are waiting. We have a store cat. He is famous. If he isn’t seen online daily I’ve been private messaged on our page asking if he is dead. I can relate to this question. I usually think if I don’t see someone sometimes they died too. So I post the cat. So he ain’t dead to so many. Except a picture online really doesn’t prove life.

I usually just talk plants. Very few know its even me behind the screen. They think it’s the owner. Which is fun for me. I can hide. It’s a place to share what I love and hide from the world at the same time. By avoiding what’s hard and saying who I am or showing who I am. To avoid.

Right now people are vultures. They are on our store like madman. Waiting for a post so they can comment their griefs over our indifference of the masks. We struggle with this change. We are trying. We work 10-12 hour days in a humid greenhouse talking about plants and watering and unloading while trying to breath. They go up and down. We wear them around our necks sometimes. We drop them in ponds, toilets, the ground, they get ran over by fork lifts and bob cats. We move like most don’t in their industry. We often eat while we water and walk and talk. Some of our masks show we forget we have it on and our food is on it. Is this working? We don’t know. It’s why we try and it’s why we struggle.

I focus on the people in the store. It’s thousands. We are the busiest we have ever been in over 30 years. We can’t find plants. We can’t get things people want. The entire country shut down for weeks. Not all growers kept growing. It’s a rough decision. I can’t go in back and whip up a star colored petunia. I have to explain things to people that should know that plants take weeks to grow. Weeks that some weren’t growing. Thé shut down occurred when growers would have been starting a second round of annuals. That round didn’t start. I am asked daily to explain how plants grow. To adults. They get angry and frustrated. It’s like we are the only thing they have to do right now. And they can’t do it.

Our boss said he wants to try and give us all a day off. It’s been weeks. We would have to close. For a day. People would probably stand outside with banners demanding we open.

I can’t face the criticism from both sides online. It’s the last place I need to be. I’ve come to close to responding in a personal manner and not the professional that I am. I made a response and I copy and paste it to give the same answer of how hard this is for all of us and to just keep calm and garden on. Even though we can’t find the plants.

It’s slowly working. Hundreds of people have found relief in coming to the store. Hundreds of new followers and I have been radio silent for days. I will get back online. When online calms down and people get out and garden and we can get plants. I used to post pictures of staff and our work then it became mean and targeting our staff as individuals. I delete comments and posts. I don’t have this time. I post a picture of a beautiful flower and someone wants to know if we have something unrelated then upset I don’t answer. While I’m standing there with a line of people in real time.

So I’m avoiding but focusing. Leaning into it. Staying in real time so I can stay in real time. So I can not get into political debates and arguments and stand up for what I believe in on a platform that is specifically ran by me to be the opposite. I have had to lay out boundaries before. Those people never came back. Some did. With a more positive approach. It’s a happy place. A social platform for my gardener friends. Not a place to relieve griefs. There are places to do that. Personal pages. I think people should express their opinions and really support freedom of speech just not when it’s meant to harm. I have a place I lay out for them to do this. I do want to hear and know the grief. So I can fix their grief and not mine. People are looking for outlets and I get that. So I just don’t make mine available right now.

I guess that was my grief. It has been burdening me. I miss telling stories of plants. I want to write a story about damage plants receive from the cold. They get cold and they will be fine. I need to explain it but I’m just not ready yet. The store. At was mia for a day. I noticed he hadn’t eaten em yet. This is concerning. He can hear his bowl being filled a building away. I feared his death. I am sure many do since he hasn’t been online for days. I found him accidentally locked in a warehouse he never goes into. He doesn’t like people so he avoids them. I knew right where to look. He was where I go. He didn’t die.

It took me too long to pay bills this morning. Over an hour. Three bills. That’s all I have to pay. The process just took longer than it should have. My keypad was missing on one app. The other didn’t accept the password then when I changed it it said I couldn’t use one I already made but the app didn’t recognize as the one it was. The last took me over 6 tries to prove I wasn’t a robot. The stoplight robot question throws me off. How many squares with stoplights? I click them even if it has a little piece of the pole. I don’t think I’m supposed to. Clearly I am a robot.

The other day I was told to smoke pot. That sometimes I just need to shut down. I never have. I’m not convinced I ever will. I don’t think I would shut down or even could. I also fear I would die. That I would somehow have the worst experience ever. Laced pot, bad pot, allergic reaction…certain death. Do I bother other people that much that they think I should always just be drugged? Do they think I’m too hard for even me to handle? I am hard for me to handle. I do wish I could feel relief. But the uncertainty is fear. Fear is uncertain. Is it even about me? They can’t handle themselves and that is their relief? What’s mine? I don’t have relief. I don’t recognize calm. I tell others to keep calm and garden on and can’t even do it myself. I want everyone else to.

I am controlling in a way that is difficult. I don’t personally want to control others I want them all to do it themselves. I want mass control. So I avoid others. Then I don’t have to worry about them. Part of my role is to manage others. Not just plants. I also have people I manage who help me manage plants. It’s a delicate balance I am new at. I like things a certain way. Perfect straight rows and tags in all the same and down the same. I like things the way that I like them. I also like to be the one to do them. But I have others who do them for me now. I just watch plants grow now not always get to get my hands dirty. I enjoy the time to be able to pop flowers off and scout for bugs and actually look at the plants. But I struggle to look past that I didn’t lay them out and they are not exactly how I would have. But I can’t do everything. Or make others. I have to settle and I have.

I have learned to let go. Or am learning. All of it. The avoidance is letting go a little. It’s still avoidance but it’s letting go and focusing too. I want control but really want it of myself more than others. I will lose control of myself if I shut it down for a little. I do want sleep and relief but I want to earn it myself not cover it up. I centered the control of others I crave onto me and now don’t want to lose it.

I am very lost and could easily fall back to old habits. I may even creat new ones. My therapist told me now isn’t the time to creat new coping skills. To fall back on ones I know. Then lean into them. She likes to use this phrase right now. Its our theme. Lean into the feeling. If I have to separate I am leaning into it. To avoid. So I don’t accidentally lean into the wrong place.

Where to start? I’m a little turned around. No a lot. It’s going to end up sounding like I’m lost. Which I am. But also not. I’ve been lost. Physically. In the woods. Off the trail because I left it. I followed a deer trail and then lost the main trail. I followed a moose trail. I’ve followed no trail to look for mushrooms. I followed pawpaw patches to look for pawpaw patches. I just don’t stay on path well. I shouldn’t leave because I don’t naturally get back to one well. I don’t have an internal compass. At all.

In the woods all directions look the same. You can walk in circles and never even know it. It’s frightening. I’ve done it more than once. At night once. Because I left camp too early afraid of murderers running rampant through the woods in the night when it was just squirrels or maybe a fly I heard. Or nothing. I left the trail somehow and knew it since I could clearly see I was in the woods and not just in the woods. I circled for hours I could have been sleeping or at least laying hoping I wasn’t about to be murdered by no one.

This murdered in the woods has been thoroughly thought out. It’s ridiculous. I’ve faced this fear. I have thought about how I am certain I would hear a person coming over a squirrel. How you can’t walk in the woods quietly at night. And no one would be waiting for me. No one will fall from the sky. No one will float up in the harbor and find me. No one is hiding because no one is there. I still have to go through these stories quickly to stay put at night. Specifically so I don’t wonder the woods at night.

I go to get lost. I take a compass but don’t use one. I’m sure I can but actually not sure I can. You hold it a certain way and then follow the direction it points to to keep you going a single direction. But it doesn’t know where it is taking you. What if heading north is to somewhere longer? Or East takes you to water? The compass doesn’t tell you where you are headed it tells you you are still heading somewhere. I don’t have an internal compass either. I’ve tried. To find one. It’s not in there. I don’t have a true north feeling. If anything I naturally veer west but only because each time I have been lost I come out to find I walked west to get to out. Then had to go back East to get to where I was supposed to be. Then north to my car. I shouldn’t be going to the woods.

Getting lost in the woods and being lost in the woods are very different. I can get lost. I need to get lost because I am lost. I am way off my trail right now. Because I just don’t seem have one. I did. And I will find it again or at least a something to get me out. I always do. There is always a way out. I look back and see I came from somewhere. I see it looks like I blazed my very own path currently but look ahead and it looks like no one has. Because no one has. I’m a trail blazer.

I need comforted. I just do. I don’t like that I feel I need it but I spent so many years saying I needed nothing by saying nothing. It’s a risky thing to need something from people. I don’t even like people to carry a bag for me. I don’t ask for help. I don’t like to feel weak. I don’t want someone to say “she should have never fell asleep at bedtime, it never would have happened if she has just stayed awake, forever.”

I haven’t slept in almost four days. I did a little last night and woke panicked I slept through a tornado and everything was gone. I thought I was going to die. My chest hurts this morning from shoulder to shoulder but could be from the ridiculous sit ups I’ve decided I need when what I really need is to be held. To cry on a shoulder not cry on the shoulder of the road. I’ve never been held by someone who isn’t 5 to cry. Or my dad. Not never, some have tried. But tried at times I wasn’t ready to be tried. I didn’t lean into it at all. I leaned away.

“Lean into it”she says. That’s what therapists say. Stupid shit. Yet brilliant and what sounds like permission to leave my path and wonder around aimlessly looking for comfort in others. It’s ill advised advise but grief is pulling at it. Saying look for comfort. Comfort food. Comfort clothes. Books. Songs. Time. Places. She says to follow this feeling.

I say “what if I get hurt again?”

She says “what if you don’t?”

It’s her job. To say opposite of any doubt I have. She has also shown vulnerability to me and I know she is also heart broken. Going through something not too much different from me. She wouldn’t have had to tell me, I knew. I could tell. I’m nervous I’m listening to her tell me what I should be hearing but is really what she should be. People do that, give advice that they really need for themselves. I’m supposed to be thinking of me not her. But zoom meetings confuse me when I look at the screen and see me in the top corner. I don’t know who to look at and we also look the same. I told her I can’t zoom anymore. She said. Good we are allowing people in person next week. I need in person. I need more than I ever tell anyone.

I want to wear other people’s sweatshirts. Grown men specifically. To pretend I’m wrapped up in something bigger and stronger and wiser than me. I know this is not true to all grown men but right now my dad is dead and I don’t have a grown man. I don’t feel I have anyone. Even though I know I do. I want to breath in someone else and wrap up in their arms and just be, comforted. Because its comforting? I think. I like comfort food. I made one. I remembered my favorite one after years of not remembering my favorite one.

I did this once. No twice. I bought a shirt, then wore it on my backpack trip. It was worn everyday of a trip that was the hardest trip I ever took. Slept in, left to dry on the shore of the lake on warm rocks, wiped my stove clean, waded in to wash, wondered through tall grass after leaving the trail to look for bugs that love this tall grass. Then I packed this shirt away. Then I thought I lost it. I called the place I stayed in after this trip. They didn’t find it. Did they look? I was prepared to drive 12 hours to look myself. For this shirt. They didn’t understand the importance. It belongs to someone else. In my mind. I wear it for him. So he can feel and smell my purpose of life. I found it. I had stuffed it in a bag I never stuff things in. I’m sure at the time this unknown bag seemed the safest place. I pack this shirt up and mail it to him. So he has it. We exchange it. I worry he has forgotten it. Or lost it or it’s not important anymore. But it is to me.

I could write about him for days. That’s how much he has impacted me. How much he keeps me on my path. Except I’m off right now? Or maybe Im on a new one? He is still there. Not gone. My dad is still there but gone. I’m trying to feel that. Yet feeling it reminds me he isn’t. That his sweatshirt almost doesn’t smell like my dad anymore. So I’m now turning to other people’s sweatshirts to feel comfortable? To feel safe.

My dad is just dead. I accidentally told someone he could do something for them. He could string her guitar. Because he can except he can’t. Because he isn’t anymore.

I will never wrap this story up neatly. It’s too messy? Not messy. Griefy. I’m wearing a strangers sweatshirt pretending this stranger is holding me and crying like I’m a 5 year old who lost her favorite shirt. I’m crying like I lost my dad and now feel lost. But am not lost. I’m sad. My dad died and I should be crying every single day and telling people what I need. But I don’t know what I need. Because I don’t tell people what I need. I am going to head west to look around. I don’t know what’s there. Because before my dad died I wasn’t supposed to go this way. I was supposed to go some other way. But even then my compass I don’t follow inside was just saying to stay that way not wonder off. Now my compass says, nothing. Because I don’t have one inside. Just carry one. But don’t want to follow anyway for awhile. I need someone else who follows a compass. That’s what I need to be led. Just for awhile. A good trail guide is what I need. Someone who has been so lost they now know how not to be and will show me out. Because out seems to not out right now. I’m too lost. I need someone with a compass.

I just don’t picture a day I will wake to have thousands of dollars appear in my account. I’ve sort of given up on ever being included in the stimulus package of the country. I do need to pay bills and things but I’ll just keep paying them with my regular money that shows up when I work for it. I check too often. I am losing interest. I am tired and losing my attention.

I have to wait for my coffee this morning. I’ve been so spoiled with the little pods of who knows what in it that make my coffee in 40 seconds I forgot how to make it the regular way. I did it once with no water and then once with just a filter. I made hot filtered water. It’s taken me a half hour to have a cup of coffee while I write. I’m writing without it still waiting for it. I’m still waiting.

My homemade laundry soap exploded. Just blew right up when I added the boiling water to the dry mix I was given. It said to. But that’s all it said. It said boil water and add to it. No warnings and no specific type of container just add water. I put the lid on the used laundry container I thought deemed a perfect use for a new laundry container. The lid and bottom of the container exploded from the pressure of the boiling water and likely whatever someone at the church used to make this soap to donate in boxes of things for people who struggle. Like me.

I struggle. I am struggling today. My coffee says it’s done so I pour coffee. I spill the entire cup. And its spilled in a place I will have to move things to clean good. It’s also clearly the wrong coffee. Because it’s quite clear. It’s brown water. It’s a coffee meant for a press which I’ve never gotten right and broke more of than I’ve even owned because I also break other people’s fancy all glass French presss. My coffee is now all over the counter with remnants of a laundry soap explosion. It is made with some weird almond milk creamer. My coffee tastes like nuts someone squeezed milk from. Nothing is right today. Nothing is mine. I’m trying to live with other people’s things they gave me so I can just live.

I have a hundred or so tiny creamers I can open if I wanted to. I thought of sitting and making it a thing to do. Like sit and watch Gilmore girls while opening creamers to put them into a larger container so I can have cream for my coffee tomorrow without having to open three when I don’t want to open any. It doesn’t sound like a thing to do. I also don’t want to open them individually as I need them. It’s a lot of waste. I have so many little packaged things from these food boxes I don’t know what to do with them. Jelly, cream, honey, cream cheese, sugar, even little things of frozen fruit so small I can’t figuré out what I will ever do with them.

I need back on track. Back on my mission of life and not sitting now upset over spilled coffee small containers and exploded laundry soap. They seem too many things to handle. I’m rather curious of the method to get almond milk and am fighting the urge to find out if they are squeezed or soaked or what. What happens to a dried almond. Lacking his milk. Are there bags of dried almond. I sort of thought a nut was dry.

I could use some of these small things for a backpack trip yet I picture never getting to go again. It’s just not feasible anymore. My dad is dead and my mom is alone, my kids dad is mia and I am also alone. The parks are closed and once opened will be rampant with people who don’t understand the proper use of the parks. They were already there.

I was getting frustrated with the over use of parks. Not just parks but the big trails and the lightly used trails slowly changing to moderate to heavy. I think they should limit their use at least some of them. Maybe, it’s good to encourage people to love the outdoors but the universe is telling us it’s too many. Make people have to get a permit and only allow so many on it. Maybe even close them for awhile. Oh wait. We are doing that now.

They need time to restore. All of us. The whole world needs back on the mission for life. I rested one single day and I am on day three of feeling unrested from resting. I keep going. There are energizer bunny people. I am one. I gave in when others convinced me to stop. I didn’t listen to my body I listened to what someone said. My body hurts yes. But it hurts to live sometimes. My knees are fine. I needed like a small rest. Not a stop and rest for a day. I rested too long and now feel I need a 2000 mile walk to get back on track.

I drank an energy drink because I know they will burn through me so quick it will cause me to want to move faster for a minute. Increase my heart rate unnaturally and burn my eyeballs. But that’s it. Then I pee and feel nothing but my eyes dried up. I don’t fuel up this way.

I know how to push myself. I also know when I need to stop. It wasn’t time. I will when I need to. I listened to the interstate in my head for two and a half hours early this morning before I finally fell asleep. then I woke to my alarm a half an hour later. Then just messed up everything about my morning right away.

My mission is to live my life and love who I am. Then I will rest.

What in the world is the universe doing to me?

What are you trying to teach me, show me, tell me?

I am listening, I thought.

You are getting quieter, sneakier, or maybe braver in talking to me.

I am behaving in ways I never have. More forward. More open. More daring. But I am listening I swear. I just don’t know now what is being said. It’s being said in a new way.

You changed the way you talked to me. It’s coming from me. Not you but also you but me.

They say, who they is I don’t know, but someone said, they say the quickest way to get over someone is to think of someone else. It’s also probably in a song.

I have been thinking of someone else. Myself. So much to the point Ive had to at least a dozen times convince myself that I’m not being selfish. Like I’ve been told.

I’ve been focused on myself. Which for me is the most difficult task known to me. Not that it’s me it’s that I don’t focus. Or, I obsessive focus.

I’ve been trying to get back to my reality. Which is reality. Reality bites. Which is an old movie and also reality just bites.

I’ll never meet people if I continue to research the most isolated places known to man to be in. Then get there and get frustrated I am one of maybe 2 people there.

But, I’m never going to meet people if no one is in real time anymore with me. Even in Walgreens people can’t be in real time. People have lost the ability to be with themselves. They aren’t paying attention now that I am learning to.

I picture me hitting him with my car or he hits mine. Like on accident. Because he isn’t paying attention. And I’m also not. He was in some other time looking down at a screen when the universe saw a chance and then I hit him with my car because it happens on a day I am not at my best with my own attention and am likely looking at a small bird. Then he dies. The person not the bird. But not from me hitting him, that was a light tap he brushed off as nothing. He never noticed me just that he ran into something while he was somewhere else.

This won’t happen. But all my scenarios end with, then he died. Because they do. We do. All of us. I wish it weren’t true sometimes yet 80+years of life seems like a good amount of life to be had. Done with gusto even 40 is good. Even 25. Life is good when really lived until it’s over. Reality bites but its worth it. In the end we die.

I am being impatient. I let yesterday rule me by thinking ahead to places and with people not right in front of me. It catapulted me into bizarre conversations, boundaries I never break, barriers I now see were there for reasons yet to be understood, by me. Via the universe. But me.

I am afraid to be happy. I am afraid to be calm and content. I still anticipate the chaos that seems to always erupt in my presence.

So I look for places to be to never allow anything more than what I feel I can handle except I know I am capable and want more.

I can’t do a sit up without someone sitting on my feet. I want to do sit ups now that I’ve thought about them for about 6 minutes I want to be a sit up professional. For about 6 minutes. But I can’t. My legs seem too long to stay down. I can’t sit up from laying down without rolling to the side. It hurts my hips. My tailbone is in the way. I don’t have a sofa for scrunching my feet under to hold me down. I didn’t think of sit ups when I bought my sofa I thought of things under the sofa and that I would love to have one up a little to avoid those lost things. Now I’m annoyed things are still under the sofa and I can just see them better. I always have to go under the sofa and it’s just a 4 inch space so I have to move it. Like I would have for the things I didn’t know were under there. Life under the sofa was better unseen and unknown.

See I’m anxious. Very. I won’t be able today to stop thinking of sofas and sit ups. And who will sit on my feet to do them.

I need to just be more patient. I can see this. When I sit back but not up and look closely. I’m not listening to things like I was. I forgot. For a minute I am the one telling me what to do. That when I tell me what to do the result is directly from me. I forgot for a day I was in charge not him. He tugs at this still. That I couldn’t do it. I can’t.

I sometimes need help from someone to remind me to do it. Stay on task. Focus. Do sit ups. Start somewhere. Follow through. Ignore the birds. Ignore the noises. Drive. I just need someone to say you can. Not you can not. Because I can. I just can’t do sit ups alone.

Yesterday is not a blur. I have very clear memories of the conversations I had. They often get lost when I’m more not in the moment. But I think I was. I think I was for once while also having a conversation. Both. I did both. I listened and offered conversation back. Was it really productive chat? No no really. I looked for the lesson to be learned and the new boundary to be set so I don’t go past that one even though the old one moved a little. I just made new boundaries for myself. Don’t ask people if they like cheesecake.