So I’m just going to cry all day? That’s the Father’s Day plan. That isn’t a question or doubt. No doubt this day will be nearly too hard. I don’t have a father alive to tell anymore. Or a father I really want to tell more than him. Of course I’ve still said it. To the universe. So it’s said and I can try to imagine he still heard. I don’t have a grave stone or place to say things. He didn’t want that. He wanted used back up. Not wasted and buried. Nothing left to leave behind. But memories.

I am relieved he left this way. I don’t want a place to go and talk to him. I talk to him in all places right now and will forever talk to him in all places. He still talks to me in my ways I am me. He still talks to me through me. Right? It’s a question today not something I think I believe yet. I’m saying and writing the words so I can read them back and see them written so my brain says. It’s written. It’s there. It’s you. Believe.

I bought a coffee for the person behind me. I always do. I always end up spending a lot on coffee. Today I pictured it was a lady who also lost her dad and didn’t have a dad too. She needed an extra shot of espresso to deal today too. I don’t even care if I were to find out she actually has a dad still. Maybe the coffee is for him? Maybe it’s for her son who is a new dad? Maybe it’s hers and her dad is in the nursing home and she can’t see him right now because of the coronavirus. It doesn’t matter. All things lead to a dad today. Someone’s else’s dad.

I sent a message to my coworker who is a dad. He will love it. He has a new baby girl who keeps him and his wife on their toes. They are a new booming little family I admire. He was my first thought this morning when I needed someone to say this to. He is a man child. Like my dad was. Like a man who still acts like a 12 year old boy. But also is our best manager. I don’t ever want him to grow up to his age. Stay 12. Like my dad.

I didn’t think I had anything on my mind this morning. I didn’t sleep much. I don’t sleep much. I dreamt of motley crew. Just people with hair everywhere I was that looked like motley crew. I woke certain i wouldn’t be able to think of my dad. Almost certain I wouldn’t even wake. Until I read about the day he died. Intentionally I took myself to this story. I don’t currently want to replay it. I didn’t even read the whole thing. Just the sentence that he died. I knew he did. I didn’t need reminded. What I need reminded of today is that he is alive in ways I can’t yet grasp. I will. I grasp. I grasp at everything. I am a master grasper. I really hold on.

Except with pull ups. I can’t think of a reason to need to do pull-ups. Or even sit ups and push ups. I am strong enough for the things I need to do and want to do. Nothing I desire requires more core strength unless it’s specifically pull ups or sit ups or push ups. They require even more than core. I’m not evenly strong enough to just be whipping out exercises. I’m not a pe teacher or in training for anything other than regular life things.

If I were to be hanging on a ledge I would fall. Unless offered help back up. That’s just how I would go. I couldn’t pull myself back up from hanging. I stay away from ledges for this reason.

I didn’t think anything other than my dad gone could be on my mind today. So nothing is. Until now. Now everything is. He didn’t like these “days”. I didn’t like them. Days we demand people think of others. Like all days like this. We just think of them when we think of them. Sometimes I was mad at my dad on Father’s Day. Or mad at my kids dad. I don’t want to tell them anything. I still love them but didn’t like them that day.

Fireworks are cancelled everywhere. There will be no celebration of independence with fire in the sky. It is single handed my favorite holiday. I am independent. I love that this day is what it’s about. I love to pack up and take blankets and food and sit and wait for this show. I love the crowds that day. I love letting the kids just kind of roll down hills and eat off the ground, and carry light up sticks waiting for dark to come. I love their hands sticky from watermelon. I love the national anthem and the American flag. The grand finale. The music from all kinds of people. I have cried at displays before. It’s moving. I am very patriotic this day. I don’t boast it with clothes in American colors and prints and really show it. It’s a personal feeling of freedom. It’s just my day I like to celebrate.

I can go back in time. To 1776 and feel the freedom. I am a time traveler. In my mind. It’s my favorite thing about anxiety. It can leave the moment and go back to hundreds of years ago and try to think of that moment. Insert myself in history. I can bolt forward and think of history not yet in the making. I can also get right back to the moment. You can’t tell when I’m here or there.

I’m sitting in my parking lot for work. I don’t work today. But I don’t know what to do today but work. Except I can’t get out of my car to go work. I want fireworks today. My dad is free. He is. He is dead yes but free of pain and suffering. He should be celebrated with fireworks and music and food. But my sister has coronavirus and my other sister has checked out. My mom is too sad to see this a day of his freedom and his independence from struggle. She believes she failed somehow and didn’t properly help him not struggle in the end. She couldn’t be there due to rules. She was always there. In her mind he suffered alone.

In my mind he didn’t. He suffered never alone. He knew how to be there alone. I knew he knew how to be there alone because I learned from him that being alone is not suffering. It’s dealing. I’m my best company. He was his best company. We were often just our own best company. But he was my moms best company. She doesn’t know how to be her own yet. She may never.

My grandma died of a broken heart. My grandpa died and just kind of slowly so did she. Without him who was she? She didn’t want to find out. I felt relief for her when she was gone. Not for me but for her. She went to be with who she only knew how to be with. I worry my mom will do this. I don’t know how to help her help herself. I am too new at knowing how to help me help myself. Yet have recent experience so it’s fresh in my mind.

I am independent and free of pain and suffering. So is my dad. This is a day to celebrate. I don’t feel pain and suffering about him not being here today. Because I wrote that he is here. Just not in the way he once was. I can’t have a fireworks display or even celebrate in the way I wish we could but I can make a plan to. He needs a day of celebration. We didn’t get to have one. Not a funeral. A day to celebrate his life not his death. His freedom from pain.

Have you ever taken one of those quizzes? You know the ones that ask you questions like what would you rather do or be? Or what do you most do? Ones that you take with out thinking or thinking too much? Say it’s your spirit animal? There are quizzes to relate yourself to an animal you might associate with. I didn’t like the animal I was given based on the over thinking and under thinking of the questions. I panicked half way through. I started to answer to try and manipulate my results. I wanted a cool animal. I was given the butterfly. Is this even really and animal? It’s more like an insect. Which is an animal so yes. I just don’t usually see a butterfly and think animal. But right now I am seeing them everywhere. They are outside and so am I. This is what a spirit animal butterfly says about me:

The butterfly is one of the most emblematic totem animals symbolizing personal transformation. If you see the butterfly as your totem or spirit animal, pay attention to the areas in your life or personality that are in need of profound change or transformation. Perhaps, this animal totem guides you to be sensitive to your personal cycles of expansion and growth, as well as the beauty of life’s continuous unfolding. An important message carried by the spirit of the butterfly is about the ability to go through important changes with grace and lightness.

• Powerful transformation, metamorphosis in your life, personality
• Moving through different life cycles
• Renewal, rebirth
• Lightness of being, playfulness
• Elevation from earthly matters, tuning into emotional or spiritual
• The world of the soul, the psyche

That’s all fine. Except I don’t want to always be transforming. I feel like that’s all I do. I don’t like to handle change with grace and lightness, I need reminded. I suppose that’s why I am in tune with a butterfly. When I see a butterfly I don’t think of grace and lightness or change and rebirth. I think of why they keep getting in my greenhouse and dying. Stuck. Torn up in fans. Caught in webs. They are constantly in danger. From chemicals; vehicles, spiders, strong winds.

When a butterfly lands on my shoulder I tell myself that it is someone from the dead coming to land on my shoulder. I change dead people who visit in this creature. Not a spiritual awakening or rebirth. Or maybe it is?

Can I manipulate this test any more? I want to take it again and think of my answers. Maybe I didn’t really think. I love water. But also land and suns and moons and wind and light. I can’t pick one. Why won’t it let me pick them all? Why is it just one answer? I kept taking the test to try and get a different animal. I’m manipulating spirit animal tests when I can’t sleep right now. What animal is this?

Maybe mine is really a person. If they can consider a butterfly a spirit animal than a person can be too. Maybe they should just say spirit creatures or beings.

I feel like I could relate to any animal. That at various times animals appear to me, as if guiding me. Because that is what I pretend they are doing. Or they symbolize something. I often see 4 animals of the same kind. Not unusual in itself given I spend 100% of my free time in the woods. Where the creatures are. I pretend they are my kids. Each animal there with me saying, hey it’s all the kids, here with you I’m the form of forest creatures.

I think if I really think I could see how when a specific creature appears I could believe it is there as an awakening or a sign from the universe. I see thousands of butterflies though. Maybe not thousands but like ten or so a day that are there because I am surrounded by their food source as a grower. I am outdoors all the time.

I am always where fox are. I used to see fox consistently. But I also kept leaving my trash bag in an outside pocket of my backpack luring them to me. I am often in tricky situations that require fox like skills. I can adapt easily to unusual environments, i can be quick and assess situations quickly. I am skilled at maneuvering around obstacles. I am in fox environment and mind set.

I see a million rabbits. Not kidding, they breed like rabbits so they are everywhere. I don’t show affection well to others or express happiness. I express doubt and concern. Fear. I am happy overall but not like rabbit spirit animal happy even though they cross my path on every path I’m on as they express their fertility, which I am since I have 4 kids plus 2 I lost.

I see hawks. They are looking for food. Often circling around scoping the ground from above. They are intuitive. I am not. I am on the ground where their intuition says food is. I am not their food, they know. Their intuition says I’m not. Mine says I don’t have a natural intuition. I have limited focus. However I can take the lead if needed. I am not in my mind someone to follow yet I can lead. To where? Not even I know but I’m leading you. I’m your spirit creature that has no specific spirit creature.

I see turtles. I surround myself with places that have water. You have to really stop and watch a turtle. They have lots of places to go not very quickly. It is saying slow down lady. Stop and pay attention to the path. Get me off the road. Take a minute and move me off the road. Pace yourself this world is fast and busy and you need to let it be and slow down. Why are you trying to get everywhere so quick. Follow me. Slowly.

I suppose since I am seeing the butterfly often right now I am to be paying attention to the current transformation in my life. The next new form of me that says it’s time to transform. But also the butterfly is in abundance now given it’s own transformation.

As I sit I am wondering why my panties wear at the crotch. Not wear. Ware. What is going on with this? It’s the one spot they get holes and the one place that does the least. I expect a ripped seem or tear at the waist or around the leg but smack dab in the middle of the crotch is a hole in one of the two layers. This isn’t the first time. They are old. Maybe ten years. This could be why. Fabric fails. But why there.

I learned today my brother in law and sister have covid. The Rona. I’m worried since he is a recipient of a double lung transplant years ago from suffering from pulmonary hypertension after an undiagnosed heart condition at birth. He may not survive this. You never know how real something is until it’s real. And happening to you. Like airplane crashes, or cancer, or anything too unreal to believe it could happen to you. But stuff happens.

The last thing I text my dad was about his phone cord. I took him a new phone cord, a McDonald’s Apple pie, and a Pepsi. They still didn’t know what was wrong with him. I told him they shouldn’t just guess. He said. They had a theory not a diagnosis. It still sounded like guessing to me. He never answered when I asked if he needed anything. He just died. His apple pie and Pepsi tasted like metal he told my mom. Then died. I never got the phone cord from when they moved him to ICU from regular care.

I saw my ex yesterday. He looked like my ex for the first time since being my ex. He looked like the man I fell in love with. But I wasn’t in love with him anymore and he wasn’t me. He didn’t look like all the people he seemed to be trying out these past few years. I was wildly attracted to him. It is bothering me today. I don’t want him but want someone and see someone in everyone. But mostly saw him for the first time again. I know I will never go back. Our history is too much history. It would be like going back to war and just kind of calling it a truce and just going back to normal. Just kind of saying I never thought it was your fault. Too many hard and harsh and fast and furious words and actions said to ever call a truce.

I am transforming. I can feel it. I’m ready to expose my heart and mind, to show vulnerable with no fear, to have my heart broken to learn the hard lessons the broken pieces teach you when put back together. All my spirit creatures in the places I go are in my path. I relate to them all. The ones I see. I wouldn’t likely relate to a mountain lion until I’m in places a mountain lion are. Do people have spirit animals such as this if they never leave the city? Now that is a spirit creature. Walking down the streets and out comes a mountain lion. I suppose it depends on how you answer the questions.

Do I want to be hurt in the end? No. No one does. I try not to live with no end in mind. I live with the beginning. Everything ends. It’s the live before the end time. The time to unfold wet wings and fly I suppose. Like butterflies do. Just enjoying the beauty of life’s continuous unfolding..

Or maybe I want to skydive… not fly, but fall.

In love.

I had my first haircut since the hair places shut down. Actually my first since forever. Or like two years. My hair dressers husband just passed away. He was also a former coworker/slash friend of mine. I have been dreading going. I’m not the person to make small talk or any talk to others about loss and sadness. I have enough of my own. My lesson is too new of what not to say to others. Not to call them weak. Even if they are. So I bought her flowers and avoided any conversation other than talking about the flowers. I had to wear a mask. You can’t chat with your hair lady anymore. She kept getting pieces of hair caught in the ear pieces, making my mask fall off. I kept having to touch my face. She looked so frustrated I was afraid she might just quit right there. Leaving me with half a hair cut. She asked if we are doing any color. I said no. Just check me for ticks and a even out the angle that occurs naturally on my right side making my hair longer on one side. But I was thinking. Get me the hell out of here. I can’t breath, can’t talk and can’t be a regular customer today.

I was proud of my restraint in not coloring or perming my hair. I tend to do this. On a whim. It is usually like extraordinary color, not just some regular colors but blues and greens and pinks. I like extraordinary colors. But then I have buyers remorse of the worst kind. It’s permanent. I now have extraordinary hair color. She said. Your hair is naturally highlighted from the sun. People pay hundreds of dollars for this. She didn’t want to color hair today either. She is making me love my naturally hard workIng highlights I earned so we can end this moment. I say. I’m currently struggling with several employees if she knows any who wants to naturally highlight their hair. We laugh and talk about the flowers again and not about dead fathers. We talk casually about flowers and hair. Things we both can talk. I try to drink my coffee I brought while forgetting I can’t drink coffee I bought with a mask on. I leave.

I sat in my dads workshop again and cried. After the hair thing I wanted to cry. It’s starting to be a place I go cry. It was a good hard one. I couldn’t find a proper regular hammer. Just like the plain regular one with all the paint splattered on it. I am making my own tomato cages. They are too expensive to buy as many as I need that will be good. So I gather old 1×1 boards from work and plan to make little teepees. Like my dad did. It was painstaking to watch him do.

It was painstaking to watch me do. But I did. I could never find a hammer growing up. Just a regular one that hammers. My dad being a carpenter should have made this not a thing yet here I am in his workshop looking for a hammer and find just a bunch that do things similar to hammering but with various different heads to them. All laying out in places like they are about to be used to do extraordinary things. Not regular hammering things like nailing 1×1’s together to make tomato teepees.

It takes me to a place I just let it take me. I started to get mad he was in the middle of things. A bag of supplies to fix a lamp, a piano part broken that belongs to someone, a violin in the vice grip, stuff not put away. His work vest in a pile on the floor. Why didn’t he clean up before he died? I wanted to clean. He has hundreds of clamps in buckets on edges of shelves. I am convinced he just like having them. Like I like rocks he like clamps. I start looking at just all the things in there. It felt like going through a diary. So private. When I was little I used to open his little metal drawers and see what was in them. Just nails and screws but for some reason it felt like finding treasure.

I hang his vest and start putting a few things away. Let’s be honest he doesn’t need them out. I like things in places. He isn’t in there working like my imagination wants him to be. He was working then died and now my imagination says it’s time to help him clean up. I don’t want it clean. I just want to find a regular hammer. If he saw the hammer I used he would have stopped me. If he saw how I was holding it to hammer he would have been disappointed yet not surprised. I hammer like a girl. That’s not the right one or how you hammer. He would say. I would say. But it’s working. Then he would find the right one and just switch them. Putting the wrong one back away. Where did the right regular one come from?

As I’m tying these teepees up I get so frustrated I want to smash them. I can’t do anything without him here but now I have to. Does he know how angry I am right now? I stomp out of the garden and go in the shop and sit and basically pout. Like a child I’m pouting and crying. I don’t pout but I want to right now. I am angry. His stool settles. It’s broken still because he died and didn’t fix it either. He didn’t fix things before he left me. He didn’t tell me how to fix things before he left. He didn’t show me where the regular hammers are before he left. I didn’t listen to how to fix things before he left. Now I’m mad at me for not listening. I never do. Never did. Still can’t. I’m too loud myself to hear anything but myself, if that.

Out of the blue , Where are you Christmas comes on on my playlist. It’s my song. It’s the weirdest song to call my song. It can bring me to my knees in a second. It played one night in the hospital when my daughter was on life support after heart surgery. It played once in a shopping mall later on, it plays randomly, I force it to play. One year playing it over and over. Not at Christmas. I am about to play it again right now.

It’s the middle of June, I’m pissed off, sad, can’t find anything regular, and my dad died. I need him to not be dead, and then I laugh so hard I peed. It was the opposite effect this song had on me. It usually brings me to tears. The ridiculousness of it playing right that minute was so hilarious I couldn’t think. Just laugh. I got up and went to the corner of the garage. The place where all his tools hang when they are in the places they hang. I cry and laugh and contemplate sitting there until someone comes to find me. It’s my game.

I’m a master at hide in hide and seek. I hide so well no one can find me then get furious when no one does. I want to sit there and be found. My dad would have found me. But I don’t have time. Christmas is coming apparently. I start to just pull screw drivers up and out of the slots they are in. They are all different. None are a philips. None are regular. Just a bunch of unregular ones. I don’t need an extraordinary screw driver just a regular hammer. Then at the very end. In the corner. Hanging. Is a hammer. A regular one. Not just one but all 3 of his regular hammers. They hang because they are regular. I can never find them because they are so regular. It’s not the one laying out just used before he died. He wasn’t regular. The one I need is just regular. The ones he needs are extraordinary. Like he was. Is. I am just an extraordinary carpenters daughter not an extraordinary carpenter, looking for regular hammers so I can hammer tomato teepees.

I was called a nice girl. You know, every girls favorite compliment. Not that I am looking to be a bad girl but nice? I am nice. So it fits. But it’s not always the thing we girls want to hear. I can’t even figure out why it’s bothering me. I want to be nice. I aim to be nice. I just am nice.

A man was trying to describe me to an employee so he could ask for me by name, he starts his sentence with this, “I don’t want to be rude in describing her….but you have a white girl who knows about trees there.” My employee stopped him. He knew he meant me from the tree part. Yet also didn’t want to hear what rude description he was about to present. Who starts a sentence like that? What was his description about to be? No good comes out of saying I don’t want to be rude describing a person. Was the use of the word white rude? It is just a color description. This day and age it is seen as rude on all color spectrums. It’s a risky way to start a description. But, I am white. And also nice.

Later he called back and asked for me by name. Now that he knows it. He did once, he forgot it. When I answer he tells me he knows I talk to hundreds of people and so he will describe himself to me so I can get a better picture. I stopped him. I knew who he was. He kills arborvitae by not watering the way I say to. He is in his 4th batch of plants. But yet he tells me anyway, “I’m a tall black man” what?? Then I insisted he stop describing himself. But he still kept going. I didn’t know how to get out of this conversation. He is an alcoholic. He has come to my place of work and confronted me about his dead plants and been told to leave. I have physically gone to his home to water his plants properly. He dug them up and moved them. He ran sprinklers and did weird amendments to the soils to “help”. He tells me he was a navy seal. I can’t see it. He likes things to add up. He can’t get an exact answer and measurement out of me for care of plants and it infuriates him in the night. I worry he could kidnap me and make me care for his plants. That seems extreme but I have seen his extremes.

One of my employees dog died. This is sad. I know. I’ve lost dozens of dogs. Because I love dogs. Just none have lived forever just like my dad didn’t. Pets die. People die

She can’t work. She barely can at her best. She is sadness. Like literally the girl from the movie Inside Out. Blue hair and glasses and all. When we hired her I said no. She was not my vote. She couldn’t tell me her name. I asked what she would like to be called since her application said one thing and her several follow up emails said another. She tells me a story of her name. In the end, I have no idea still what to call her. To this day I can’t seem to call her the right name. She tells me she knows plants yet never talks about plants. When I ask her about plants she tells me she has always wanted to work for us. She avoided all plant related questions.

Her first day she called late. The next she called in. Then the next she went to the bathroom 7 times. She demanded steel toe boots when I asked her to use a pitch fork. I gave the task to someone else. I worried she might stab her foot. She must have at some point. She worries me. I’m worried she is smoking weed at work. I worry I don’t care. I assume most the staff do. I figure I am the only one who doesn’t.

She asks to leave for the second day after her dog died. She has now taken more time for her dog than I have for my dad. She seems to be able to barely breath. Like me, only she shows it. She hangs her head low and walks slumped and low. She is the girl I told she is weak. That I blurted out she is weak. She looked crushed. I meant it a way to be said different but it came out as me seeing her as weak not that we all feel weak during loss. I now am worried I compounded her grief. I should not give ill advised advice during periods of devastating grief. I will have to explain to her what I meant. She will not work. I am certain she isn’t quite not weak enough to work for us. We have to be weak but not show not. Because we are all a little weak. Especially when sad. We hide it. Avoid it. Deal with it away from the place. Or at our place.

The place full of plants. How can you feel anything but not weak around everything that grows. It’s the place to be to gather strength. I absorb my plants energies. I feel growth by seeing it right before my eyes. If it weren’t for my work I would show weak. I would walk slumped and carry a cloud of gloom. Constant rain cloud just on me. Like her. Why can’t she feel this when she works? That same feeling. It is a select few who last with us. The horticulture industry is hard. It’s for the weak who want to be strong.

I am sure I didn’t inhale weed. I know I didn’t. That’s why it didn’t work. I didn’t want it to. I’m afraid to lose control of my mind. I don’t have a problem with my busy mind. Others do. I can’t get myself to fill my lungs with anything other than the polluted air I breath or maybe like campfire smoke. Along with any other unintended vapors I don’t know about. I’m told it’s a plant what could be harmful. I don’t know. There are two sides. Some say it is some say it isn’t. So it’s best to just stay neutral and not find out. I think of my grandpa and his lung cancer. My grandma and hers. My dad and his weakened lungs from a disease he was born with that didn’t know how to protect his lungs. I know how to protect my lungs and so does my body. So why let something destroy them or not. It’s a simple control of me.

That being said, I could try to eat weed or drink it. It’s in all forms. Why? Why are there so many ways to get high? Why are there so many people who want or need to be high? Why are there so many people who want me to be? I could make a tea. And call it my tea at night. Or I could chew them up like a gummy bear. Or I could make some brownies or some compound butter for my steaks. I could probably get an eye drop. Or maybe a toothpaste. I don’t know where it starts and where it ends. Our world will be consumed by weed. It would consume me. It’s best to keep that little barrier nice and firm. I’m not that curious anymore. I was. I tried and now I’m past it. I didn’t really even try out of fear of losing my mind. Some get more anxious from it. I have seen my more anxious. I don’t need to add to my anxious.

At one of my trips there was a missing person along the river. The river we had set my tent up to sleep on. We had just smoked weed. Although I really didn’t. There were cops everywhere looking for a lady who was trying to hang herself off a cliff or jump or something. They never approached our tent. They cruised past down the river and said they would talk to us on the way back. On the way back? Like they would turn around and go back up the river and ask us if we saw a missing person? Why wait? What if she was right there in our tent? I hoped I didn’t go missing in this park. We packed up to leave fearing the police everywhere and the weed in the system.

We leave and the deputy stops us. He casually asked what we are doing down there. I blurt out we are trying to camp along the river but you have police everywhere and not saying why. He laughs. Laughs. Then says. Yay, just a missing person. A suicidal, white female. Just a missing person? His truck has a magnet for his title. He is a deputy by night. What by day? He was not even worried about clearly there being weed. Or maybe it wasn’t clear? Maybe I just look like a nice white girl out enjoying camp. Nothing to worry about. I’m not the missing white female so there are no worries. Yet he never ask if we have seen a white suicidal female.

We ask if we can go back and he says that’s a better question for the ranger. She is down by the river. What? Why didn’t he know. Why was he just sitting there. We head back. We pass the ranger. Like she is leaving the river as we head back down. She stops and just looks at our car. Then drives away. Likely told I was a nice white girl and nothing to worry about.

We go back. Set back up. Third time setting my tent up. By my car this time. Then lay down and headlights appear. She returned about half an hour later and comes up to the tent to tell us we can’t camp there, just along the river. I explain we tried but we couldn’t sleep from all the chaos no one explained. We were trying to get to the trail head and the roads in Missouri at night make no sense and make even less sense during the day. She laughs. Everyone laughs here in the middle of the night while looking for suicidal white females. She says we are close and to follow her and she will drive us right to the trail head.

We follow her. I can’t believe we just pack up again and follow this little ball of fire ranger. She talks and talks about this trail we are going to do. It’s her favorite. She just did it. It’s really 20 miles not 14. She has personally blazed it. Like she didn’t like the amount of blazes so she added more. She drives like she owns the roads. Leaving us in dust more than not. She was like a little pistol. Her white car cruising though the Missouri mountains. I wanted her job.

We get to the trail head and she gets out a map and lays it on her hood of her super expensive brand new white explorer with a bike attached to the back. She said they have a lot of logging going on and to watch for the blazes. I tell her stories of times i have been lost on logging trails. I still don’t know her name. In my mind it’s stardust. I also haven’t decided if she is a boy or a girl. She has me take pictures of her map which would later help me get unlost. I ask if there are bike trails here and point to her expensive bike. She says no. Just like that. Why the bike then? She said the department bought 6. But why?

Then she leaves. I half expected her to be sitting there waiting the next morning to blaze trails with us. I needed to know her name.

When we were near the end of the trail we got off the trail. Onto a logging road. This is a common issue with me. We had been steering to the water constantly getting us off trail so I said we needed to quit. Next thing I know we are about 3 miles from the water. We are supposed to follow the water but never cross it. So I veered is too far away at one point. We were now lost. Not even on a trail. I have seen how this place handles lost and missing people…would the deputy throw that magnet on during the day? Or just at night? I don’t want to be lost here at night. Or ever.

I walked us up and found a signal. Called the resort and told them to contact a ranger and gave her my sort of location by a gate and told her I was heading us back straight East through the woods to get back on track. That I was a white female blond hair and my name . Just in case, just in case the same people were looking for us that did the woman from the night before. I really wanted them to know what I looked like to find me.

We walked for about two hours and all of a sudden hit the trail again. It worked. I knew it would if I never left East. My picture of stardust’s map showed me terrain I couldn’t load on my maps with no signal. It also showed the current logging roads and trails that maps don’t show. We finished the trail and towards the end we noticed flags like everywhere. Like every ten feet. They also weren’t on the trail. These were stardust’s blazes. She really blazed it. Wrong. We followed them for awhile until I said this is so wrong. We went back. She must have done it in the winter months. They would have gotten us out but out straight out of the woods through the woods. Off trail.

The rangers drove up when we were leaving. They had been looking for us. They were worried we had gotten off on the logger trail. Which I had. They tend to remove blazes without knowing it. She asked me to show her where I think we went wrong, she would re-blaze. Rangers love to blaze. The rangers had just my name and my cell number. The resort lady never told her I said we had just climbed over a gate and the description of us. This ranger said they weren’t worried because the ranger from the night before Stardust, that took us to the trail head said I was a very skilled and experienced hiker. That I would either sit and wait for help or find my way out. This shocked me given that most times I hike I get lost. Then get unlost. I ask her name. It’s Ellie. Ellie? It doesn’t fit, but confirms a girl. She will always be stardust in my mind.

Nice girl? I am so much more than a nice white girl.

I write less because I have more people to talk to? Or more courage to talk to people? The problem is I still just need the outlet to undo things. I have things that just need undone and the only way is to see it not just say it to another. Sometimes I wish my therapist and I were just pen pals. I had someone I used to write to. He feels no longer there. Except he is. I don’t even know if he got my letters. There is more to life than one single person. For years that was all I knew. One man. Not that I needed many or more but I needed many and more of everything but just one man. I was consumed with one person as he made it so I consumed him. It snuck up on me. I was just somehow made to feel I had to take care of his every thing. And none of my things. Learning who I am again I can see how someone could see this in me. The desire to take care of everything but me. It’s easy. I prefer hard. So I chose me now.

I remember my years of online dating. Actually it was a year and a single month or two during that year. It was a nightmare. How and why people think this is a way to meet people will never be understood by me. It feels like fighting the universe in a way. Is the universe online? Can that same stardust like feeling of meeting someone who you didn’t expect be found through the lines of the web? Is the web connected to the universe or is it a disconnect?

Is that something bigger out there feeling confusion of all the people trying to manipulate plans they have no control over? Isn’t that what we always do? Is it human nature to control an outcome?

I was not excepting to find a friend right now. It gravitated to me. Somehow. I didn’t try. I didn’t look. I walked right into it. Five years ago I would have walked right past it, not seeing it. Or walked right around it. Avoiding. This smacked right into me. A surprise. A don’t like surprise. It’s too surprising. But also it’s exciting. It’s both.

I did meet one single person online who has impacted me in ways I can barely understand. I call him river west. Actually he calls himself this. Maybe not to others but to me it’s who he is. Like me, he is Geographically misplaced. He belongs in another place. He taught me that I can love myself. That I am never alone. That I can guide myself. That I can get somewhere. To be honest it was like my dad put him here for me. For when he is gone. A man with simple words and a complex mind. Like my dad. One single word to assure me. It’s good. I will never understand the dynamic of this strange relationship. No one will. I quit trying to. It is like so many other things. It’s not to be understood just felt and accepted.

The first time I met him I could feel his pain. That’s who I am. I feel others. That’s why I can’t do online. I can’t feel through it. I could sense his lost. His pain. His feeling of broken. He touched me and that was it. I felt connected to him forever. That’s sounds so dramatic. But right then I knew. He will be my someone. Not my everything like I was always made to feel but that someone.

The first time I told him I was planning to backpack across Isle Royale he said. Do it! That’s it. So I did. Then I kept doing this. He seemed to think it was my calling. I seemed to agree. It really is. He never doubted me or told me not to. He has his own misery he deals with. I don’t even have to know it to know it. He deals with it.

I wish he could physically be here with me through the loss of my dad. He isn’t. I have others. That’s how it should be. He is there though. I’m one of those people that can feel things others can’t see. Except God. I can’t feel God. I mostly feel relief that others can. Since I can’t.

I want to. But I can’t. I feel something. And it’s bigger than me but I can’t give it a name. My science pulls and tugs at the thoughts of evolution and layers of the earth made. But made by what and who? I’m too sciency. I need the how’s and why’s of what is. If I close my eyes and just believe I can believe by just believing for a few minutes. Than I wonder about it. It takes about 2 minutes before I need to know why. I pull at this thread daily. I don’t even know why. I have a full feeling of not having control in this crazy life yet feel like I need to know who does. Or what does.

It’s tangled today with my new friends. I know this is what is normal. To have friends. To be able to lean on others and to have family. Half my life I didn’t have this. The other half my life I was just older than a child.

I have thousands of questions this morning. My chest hurts. It’s heavy with unanswereds. I can get a deep breath but barely. I have slept for 3 nights. Odd for me.

I am weak and vulnerable yet also not because I am aware I am weak and vulnerable. I have to lay really hard boundaries right now. Not my thing. I like to avoid them and push them. Not make them. I like them layer out by others. Not for me to lay out to them. But I did. I said I liked my space. And it didn’t even phase. I said I’m protective and it was agreed I should be. Weird.

Back to the something bigger. River west. He was put into my orbit to help me be able to guide myself. By imagining he is guiding me. When I feel guidless. I believe that if we hadn’t met online we would have met somehow someday on the ground. In person. We would cross paths somehow. But we already have. We will cross again someday. When I quit trying to make us. I tried for several years. Exhausted. Confused. I didn’t know how this worked. That you could meet other people while meeting other people. I thought you met a person and that was enough. I would never be enough for one single person and me for them. I am just enough for me.

This is hard. Losing my dad. It’s not going to be the hardest thing I ever deal with though. It’s not the loss that is hard. It’s the void it left. The void I am carefully filling with others. But it was time. I have been other less for so long while I found myself again. Remembered who I was before someone told me who I should be. It’s the void it has left in my mom. Her loss is what I feel. I felt relief. For my dad. Then for me. I’ve worried all my life my dad would die. Because I knew he would. We do. He did. Now my mom is alone. She thinks. I have to help her see she is not.

I feel 21. I attract younger people because of this. People who can keep up with me. People who are still finding out what kind of eggs they like to. People who want to try lobster. People who will walk miles to discover who they are while I discover who I once was. While the universe goes on with it’s something bigger than me taking care of me while I let go of needing to know what is bigger than me taking care of me in the universe. It’s just there.

I haven’t written for a few weeks. Or maybe two. I don’t recall without looking. It’s just been awhile.

I found company. Someone to talk to, hike with, drive with and just in general be miserable with. We share a recent loss. We are both grieving but not. Misery loves company? Except we really aren’t miserable. We are company.

I may be uncalmable. It could just be this way. I slept one night in my tent. I didn’t remember falling asleep, I heard the frogs and the night all awake and just didn’t want to be awake with the the things in the night. So I slept. Then woke. Confused I slept. Trying so hard to recall falling asleep. Nothing happened. I just slept and everything else that was awake stayed awake.

I tried weed. To sleep or at least feel calm. It doesn’t work. I’m either doing it wrong or I don’t have the receptors that are clingy to weed. Or I fight it. Afraid to be calm. At one point I do remember feeling like their were a lot of trees. Just everywhere. That I never stop and look at the light on the leaves. I just go. No time to look at light. I sat, then looked then promptly began walking again. I was stopped for maybe one full minute.

I haven’t been able to write. I am not a writer so it’s not writers block. It’s I don’t want to see what’s in my mind all the time for awhile. It is too much and it isn’t easily worked through. I was and am lonely. I put this energy out there and the universe responded by putting someone in my path to help me for awhile.

I’m being taken care of for awhile. Not really but sort of. I’m helped up hills and up things with a strength I can’t seem to get right now. I’m driven places. Fed. Hydrated. I can’t do these things myself right now. I should be able to but I can’t. I’m very independent. I would rather crawl up a hill than ask for help. But the hand appeared and I took it. I can’t even crawl.

He is going to become a great friend. I can feel his loss. I imagine he feels mine. We have a common bond. Loss brings people together. It never did me but I never lost my father. This void is too big. He was my person. The one who’s hand I would take. The one who showed me how to take care of myself. The one who isn’t here anymore.

Parks are crowded. We have gone somewhere every weekend and found some so crowded we left. I spend all week with small people and don’t really want to go where people take 3-6 kids to enjoy nature. It’s not fun. I’ve done it. It is never about you. It is specifically about your kids. It’s a nightmare yet the most important time to make the impression on them to be good stewards of land. Although it seemed very little of this was happening. Parents leaving litter. Teaching kids to carve into stones and trees. Music blaring. Climbing rocks off trail trampling sensitive plant life.

People are desperate to be out. The virus has made people want to be everywhere. I can share. I also know how to find where and when people don’t go. I’ve been avoiding people for years.

I struggle daily. To just do daily. I am still growing plants to make up for all the plants people wanted grown. Now we still needs more.

I struggle to write out any single thought and also all of them. I don’t want to see them back. Not right now. My focus is on company. Not company is too hard. Waking early and writing is too hard. Sitting alone is too hard. Working is too hard. Walking up a hill is too hard. Too hard is my thing. Except it can’t be done right now. I need too easy. I am weak. I told this to an employee one day. Her dog died and she couldn’t work. She said she didn’t want us to think she was weak. I don’t always think before speaking and said. But you are weak. She cried. But she is. I am. It’s also ok. She took more time off for her dog than I did for my dad. That says I’m trying too hard not to be weak. Not to be sad. I should have taken some time to be sad. It’s catching up on me. I working to avoid the sad. Now the sad is right at my heels weighing me down.

Feeling weak doesn’t mean you are. Weak doesn’t mean the opposite of strong. It is strong being weighed down by loss. I am a very strong lady. Physically, mentally and emotionally. People battling cancer are strong until they are made to feel weak, not be weak. They are still strong. Just burdened. Why I used cancer I don’t know but the image of a woman battling a cancer is what came to mind. I don’t compare my loss to this just the feeling of being a strong woman weighted down by something so big it makes me feel weak.

So for a little while I need friends. They have to help me through this. All 6 of them. I need them. They all help me in various ways. By being my company for a time I can not be my own company. I do my own company well but right now I’m terrible company.

I also have ticks. Still. I keep finding them. I brought them back from the 19 mile hike I’m southern Missouri that nearly had us lost. I think they are being born in my hair. Making their own company. I don’t have someone to look thoroughly through my hair. I made a hair appointment for just this. She doesn’t know yet but she is going to look for bugs. People use lice shampoo for lice and I’ve wondered if this could work. I spend a lot of time outdoors so I could just have bugs. A good insecticide might be needed. I don’t know. I have washed a spider from my hair before. Dogs get fleas. It needs a special shampoo. Regular shampoo might not eradicate insect eggs.

I need to get back to writing daily. To be comfortable with my company and thoughts again. I’ve been avoiding them. For company. But even my new company needs to know I need my own company sometimes. Not just company from bugs and others. My own. I am good company. Just weak company. But strong. Soon.

It begins by saying I slept. So I’m telling it backwards. Just from midnight until 4:39. 9 minutes past my alarm. I don’t remember sleeping. I panicked and knocked everything over when I heard my alarm. Lamp, books. and all. I scared the cat. Maybe even woke the neighbors. My cat is still staring at me like I’m crazy and tried to attack her with a lamp. I’ve woke like this before. Usually it’s from a feeling of being held down or in something. Or a tornado or exhausting chase. Today I woke just unsure of waking. Like it was so unfamiliar I didn’t know how to wake properly. How to just open my eyes and see the world again. Stretch and yawn and then throw my feet to the ground and take a second to rub my neck and look at something then get up and face the day. No forethought or after thought time. Just time to wake.

Before this I was chatting with friends and getting to know them. I didn’t over share. I just shared. I asked a few questions not a million. I felt comfortable and safe. I opened up in ways I have just to a therapist. Nothing felt like shame or regret. Some felt like desire for another and from another. All so new. Should have kept me stirred all up for the night. I fell asleep without any warning. I was prepared to have to research blue herons and what to do when you find giant fish trapped in a puddle from a spillway. I didn’t have time to research because I fell asleep with no notice.

Before that I had company. I wanted company. I went through countless people in my mind who might be good company and came up with a small list. Reached out and invited them and the company said yes. Same thing. I didn’t feel threatened or afraid or skiddish. A little heat from another body that didn’t have a temperature from a fever. Someone standing close to me to look at fish and behind and around me to point them out so I could also see them. They were trapped from being dumped from rain over a spillway. They looked like they had just gave up. They were just not going anywhere because there was no where to go. I wanted them all saved. I have a net at work. I wanted to call and demand the rangers come take care of this mess. I wanted to catch one with my bare hands and carry him to his big lake. I wanted to carry them all. I had to leave them. Their fate is decided.

Even before that I walked in the woods with another person. Someone who isn’t my dad or my kids. And we both came out. I wasn’t left and he didn’t leave. He called me his guide once. One trail said it was self guided but to my knowledge all the trails are guided by yourself out there. They have no guides. It dawned on me that it was the 7 signs posted around trees identifying them. It was a self guided moment to learn what was around you. I always know what is around me. Signs in the woods are a distraction to me.

Before that we sat in my campsight I usually camp in. Number 5. Halfway in from both directions of the backpack trail. The farthest point from either way in. No one ever picks this one. It takes too long to carry things to and is the farthest from the toilets. We ate sushi. Weird choice but I was craving sushi in the woods. We shared a smoke of weed. My first time. Ever. It shocked him. It shocks even me. I’m too afraid to know. It was spicy. I felt nothing but confusion on how to stand to hold it and how to walk and be with a joint in my hand. It’s never been in my hand. I was safe and with a safe person. He promised. I was in the woods. I don’t think I felt anything but a rapid heart beat and nerves that I was behaving oddly. Which I kept asking and he kept assuring I wasn’t. It worked my anxiety up. I could just tell from the heart though not the mind. I wasn’t really thinking of anything except once felt like I might want to stare at grass reflecting in the water but a man was on the edge of the water and thought I was staring at him. I kept staring at him.

Before that I was on the water with someone in a boat. I would still be there if my life and one hour only boat rules didn’t apply. We just sat and floated on the middle of the lake on a shared kayak. No where to be for an hour except with the blue heron hunting the shore. I asked him if he wanted the front or the back and he without hesitation said back. I was relieved. That was my dads spot. Temporarily my spot with my kids but not where I like to be. I don’t like to drive the boat. I like to look from the boat and sometimes paddle. I had little to do but sit. So I sat. And was paddled. I was boated. That’s always been a fear of mine. A strange conversation with someone uncertain where he belongs in the boat leaving me to decide. I like that to just be decided or known. That I don’t drive the boat. I won’t boat us. Just point at things to look at from the front and be boated. Grief is heavy and hard enough. I don’t have it in me to boat others.

Before that I picked a person up and put them in my car. Someone older than 16. He looked too big for my car. He didn’t care that I don’t care about air conditioning and music on. He sat like a puppy with his head out the window for most of the ride and just said things. He filled me in on why I passed protestors in our streets. That black lives matter. So do all lives we agreed. I don’t want to get involved but the pressure to chose a side will be great when it evolves into something that makes everyone afraid of each other more. I won’t be able to pick a side because I will have to chose me. To protect me. People are just kind of people to me. All kinds of people make us turn. It’s going to terrify me to no end. It is almost a relief that news has shifted from virus to indifference. The virus brought the indifference out. It shed light on what people believe and are afraid of and now we can’t stop. Or be stopped. It’s a scary time.

Before this I visited the garden I have begun. I call it my victory garden. Because this spring has felt like a war. It needed watered and a few bind weed pulled from the edge of the rabbit fence my dad built. I have lost one tomato. It had broke off when I planted it and it gave up. It was the pineapple one. One I didn’t really want or need but was curious about. I may replace it. Everything else is pushing a new set of leaves. I need tomato cages and some straw for a small planter box I didn’t put anything in. It just needed a small visit.

Before that I bought sushi to eat in the woods with a friend. I picked some I’ve never had. I was getting anxious about waiting and starting to think I was going to be on my own for the day. Then talked myself out of this about a dozen times which is less than the normal hundred.

Before that I watched Grey’ Anatomy for about 4 hours. I skipped 5 seasons after a simple google search told me McDreamy died in 11 and they are on 16. Do I really need the 5 in between. Nope. Lots of them died and it seems they don’t matter to where the show is now. So I’m all caught up by not catching up. I didn’t spend an entire day watching 6 seasons of shows. Just half. I text him at one point to say I was slowly falling down a binge watching trap. He hurried. He has a ton of responsibilities. As do most grown ups. I was fine waiting but getting almost not fine waiting. I hide my lack of patience for just long enough.

Before that I didn’t sleep and didn’t drive far away to hike alone. Quickly. To try and hurry a grief process up that can’t be rushed. I needed space from myself for a day. This trip still needs done. It needs forethought. It needs at minimum planned to allow me time to not be able to push myself. I may need to stop and rest from grief too much to keep walking for awhile, not push through it. Grieve through it. Slowly.

Before that my dad died.

Back to now from before. I am crying because of the last before that. All of them before that were to get me to now before that happened. Or from? He will always be the last before that. Before that he was alive. It was ok after that last before that because I found comfort with company. It took pressure off of me. To get through all of the befores to wake to today from sleep I don’t remember.

My attention span is just shot. I can’t read or focus on anything. I start things and don’t finish them. I’m not always this way. Sometimes I’m the opposite. Hyper focused. I start things and never want to stop them. I read obsessively. I obsess. I don’t have an internal moderator. I require a moderator. Or nothing gets done. Or it gets too done.

I can see the steam off my coffee in the cooler than usual air but when I tried to video it for fun it doesn’t show. It just shows a sitting cup of coffee. This steam exists even if you can’t see it. Like lots of things.

This is my first day off. My first official stay at home order day. Actually a scheduled day off. My plants grew and I kept growing so other people can also grow. Some days my home went with me to work. My girls dead headed, watered and weeded while remote learning while I grew. I grew even though I didn’t want to. I didn’t sleep and still grew. I lost my dad and still grew. I’m still growing and changing even though I didn’t want to. I looked back on my growth and I feel it even though I can’t see it.

I panicked at the thought I need to hurry this process up. Hurry up and grieve. So I can hurry up and grow. Through it. Who wants to grieve right? What I think I have learned is I can’t hurry it. I hurry everything. I don’t know how to go at an even pace. I’m a terrible runner because of this. I go fast then slow them fast then slow. I don’t pace. It doesn’t make sense to me. Which is funny because when I run I run long distances. I just don’t do it well. I get bored.

I formulated a quick plan to hurry up and go somewhere too far away with too little time to do a super long hike in the woods. Sound fun? Soothing? Healing? None of the above.

I set an alarm for 2 am. with a plan to drive 4 hours to walk 17 miles on a lightly trafficked trail. Then have to hurry up and be back home for my girls. This is their first weekend back with dad from the stay at home order they did have. At 1:30 am I was still awake. Because awake is all I know right now. I’m too afraid to sleep again. Even on my best days I’m a bad driver so even my not always clear controlled thinking was saying stay at home. That’s an order.

It won’t work. This plan that wasn’t even a plan. It was a panic attack. My version of a panic attack. A quick, not thought out properly réponse to pressure on myself even pressure from the outside world.

Even a lightly trafficked trail on a beautiful sunny day is going to be moderately to heavy traffic. I don’t miss anyone more than my dad right now and don’t crave being around people. Except, I invited people to join me on this stupid plan. They aren’t going. They likely saw the attempt as a desperate attempt to grieve before me.

I do crave company. Just not people in general. I would love to guide people on trips and through the woods but not at a time when I am guildless of myself. Lacking control. Losing control. It’s a terrible time to invite others to join on a journey that is such an unknown territory that I am too afraid to even take it right now.

I am too afraid to take a day of rest. I have and it makes me angsty. I can’t get my attention span on right now. The wires are loose. My focus is on loss and death not life and death. Life is lost so death is not. It’s easy to die. Hard to live. Period.

This is not me saying I want to die. But I am not afraid of dying. It’s living right now I’m afraid of. Not just the basic in and out of breath. But the what to do with a void so big as losing your father. It’s too big for just a quick fast walk in the woods. It’s too big for anything. I’m intentionally making myself feel like it’s too big to handle so I can be ok with it being too big to handle. So I can cry. Alone. On my own. I mean. But don’t mean. I am alone because my dad is gone. Even though there are billions of others not. They don’t matter right now. They aren’t here on my sofa with just me and all the noise I can’t make go away. They aren’t physically here. Physically present.

If my dad were hère he would have said go. Go take a walk. A little walk. Not a 17 mile walk a state away. But without my moderator here anymore I lack someone to tell me what to do and not to do when I don’t know what to do and what not to do.

Maybe I did myself at 1:30 in the morning when I text him and said how silly it was. Then turned my alarm off and we made plans to try a small walk somewhere close. So I can have company. Just another person present so I can feel present. Someone to watch out for me for just a little while since I’m struggling to watch out for me for a little while.

I picture accidentally binge watching things. I have Netflix now. Because I have internet now. I don’t know what to watch other than Gilmore girls and listen to my daughters shows on in the background but woke with the desire to know what happens on greys anatomy after Dr. Mcdreamy died. I quit watching after this happened because my life turned upside down the same time as Meredith Greys. So I have a day I can check in with her. Watch things. Not do things.

I can hear the early birds. You know, the ones that get the worms. I have been awake all night with the night owls and now it’s early bird morning and I’m tired and have to wake so I might as well stay awake.

I took a Benadryl because my arm is swollen by my elbow from a thorn I pulled out and my eyes are watering. This should make me sleepy. At minimum drowsy but it makes me not sleepy not drowsy but awake and antsy. My eyes are also still watering because they are very open. I intentionally cried to see if I’m just too full of moisture. I can intentionally cry. Because I’m sad. And I miss a few people and places I love. My heart is beating under my blanket and I can see it beating.

I am alone. Not just on my own but alone. I’m both. Because there isn’t a single person here. There are lots of people in general but none here. It isn’t as lonely as I thought and also is. I’m on my own, alone and lonely. A terrible mix. Except the birds. The birds are up because I’m not convinced they ever sleep either. I have heard them all night and all morning.

I am walking and typing. Who knows how this will go. I’ve been off balance the last couple of days so it seems a bad idea. I woke early. No I slept an hour and woke a little later to early to walk to work. It will take a few hours. I have a trail that runs straight through my town to work but it’s miles away. I’m going to explore the plants a little this morning. Early morning. Before everyone else is out. Except the early birds. People won’t be as early since they were all out late on the streets socially distancing and living life. I am relieved that so many will be back in other places soon.

My kids left for the weekend with their dad. First weekend since the stay at home order. Plus a little more for reasons he had. My only responsibility is to myself for a couple of days.

The crows are extremely chatty. And there are a lot. So far I have the trail to myself. Usually it is busy. Or lately it is. But it’s been the only place people can go who had to stay at home. Like my greenhouse. Now people can go other places.

More places are open. Just some places. I don’t even know what places. I don’t want to google news because now it is hatred and protests and riots. All I know is all the people for a month have been around me and I didn’t get a stay at home order so I’m sort of ready for them to be other places so I can also be other places I want to be. To grieve my losses.

I was thinking of a new career in the night owl hours. Lepidopterist is someone who studies and collects moths and butterflies. If I was just an entomologist I would know bugs. But this field would make it specific. I love moths and butterflies. I could have a job where I just look for moths and butterflies. I sort of do. Except the moths and butterflies find me. I work with plants so I can be around bugs. I don’t have to look for them they are where I am. This is just something I do. Think of other things to be than who I am.

Why do we think differently of ourselves from what others see and believe of us?

I am very new at trusting myself. Doubt is creeping in because of the newness. The last time I felt a loss this big was the end of a marriage. It died too. I made terrible decisions from lack of knowing not to. I had no control of myself. Not even a little. I had no clear mind. Now I have clear mind and control.

It’s scarier than I think it should feel to feel trust in myself when I should feel no doubt if I trust myself. I should have no fear. I do. I’m full of it. You can’t really learn to trust unless you don’t first. It’s just new. It’s bringing thoughts I am unfamiliar with. Certainty. I am not doubting myself.

I can do this. I can get through this. I have been through lots of things. Thinking of them a little could help. Pulling at old wounds and picking them can remind us of the pain and the lesson. It’s stopping. Scratch a little and remind yourself then stop.

My eyes are watering and my hands are freezing. All birds are early birds. And late birds and day birds. There are thousands of birds, I am not alone. I have walked right into a sign. I’m not paying attention at all to my walk. I don’t even remember crossing about 6 street crossings. I have been chased off by a blue jay. They are mean. They even sound mean. I’m guessing she was upset I was looking at plants too close to something important to her. Like baby blue jays.

If I can make it this far I can make it further.

I yelled at my coffee to brew. Twice. I’m too anticipating of it finishing so I can finally have cream in my coffee. I finally bought it. My cats keep skirtn around my feet trying to pet themselves. I can’t sit at my table to write. They are irritating. I’m irritated and antsy.

My elbow hurts and I’m worried the joint is infected from a piece of a palm tree thorn I can’t see stuck in there. I even googled to see if this is a thing. Its a thing. I also googled read one thing and un-googled. The places the thorns got me are all swollen and painful. I felt lightheaded and off last night. I also bumped my elbow on something completely in the place it’s always been. I just teetered more yesterday into things. I didn’t hit the elbow enough for it to hurt as bad as it does this morning. I do use my elbow a lot. My arms swing when I walk as if I might take off in flight soon and I lift and move plants all day long. That joint is really used.

I was just off balance all day. Everything was in my way. Even if it was the corner of a wall. A have sore toes and the top of my foot is bruised from hitting it under something. Like I put my foot slightly under the fork lift then lifted it quickly to hurt it. I hit my foot with my water wand. I was swinging it around like i usually do and smacked the same spot on top my foot. I hit my head on the bobcat machine getting out. I get out of this machine more than my car.

I nested. I need everything to be in place all of a sudden and it doesn’t seem to all have places. So I have to make places. I need some simple order and control very quickly because the simple order and control of myself is losing it.

I need time alone. This time this is the correct word and the correct use of it. Alone from my kids. I need space from them. It’s been over 3 months they haven’t gone to their dads. For more reasons than the virus. They go this evening for their first weekend. Both girls are very concerned about this. I share their concern but know they will be ok. Because I need to be ok. I need time alone. Not just time on my own. I need alone time where I can not be bothered by the needs of small people. Or the special needs of people. I need to be alone and get lost.

My dad died and I haven’t cried alone at all. I cry everywhere I feel I shouldn’t be crying. In public, in my store, in the grocery store, in my car, in my dads garage….all surrounded by other people. I haven’t walked exhausted up a hillside and frustrated with the fact I don’t research trails properly before going. I haven’t filtered water. Looked at the sky under the trees but above them. I haven’t cussed out the world. Thrown rocks off ledges. Throw rocks in water. Set my feet n the cool soil. One weekend may not even be enough. I am losing control of myself and need to remind myself how resilient I am. I am forgetting.

I propositioned 2 people now for sex. I feel like I’m on my third. None have entertained this proposition. For one one is a friend. Also a friend I barely know. A new friend through a friend. So really just a mutual friend. I asked my one friend if he thought he would do it and he said yup. So I made a plan to ask and just did. I said. Do you like cheesecake? And he said yes. Then I said. Oh I meant sex. He said yes to this also. Then just asked. He didn’t say no but is likely now thoroughly confused. I know I am. I’m not going to have sex with this mutual friend. It’s ridiculous. I am feeling desperate and also exploring my boundaries. I went way over one. Or I made a new one. A new one, definitely a new one.

Im not attached to anyone. I am single. I don’t know things I like and don’t like and never will if I don’t try. But I’ve felt this way before and it got me into scenarios I never want to get into again. I slept with someone to see what was wrong with me. That was my only goal. I also made it clear this was my goal. Turns out that was what was wrong with me. I was looking for something in others that I couldn’t find for myself. I am capable of finding myself. I have before. I’ve felt this lost before.

A week of shit coffee has made this cup taste like the most amazing thing I’ve ever had. There could be a second cup. But a second cup doesn’t taste like a first cup. The taste of waking up.

I won’t fall back into that pattern. I still feel desperate but it’s not specific to sex. It’s specific to intimacy. And for me this is a very emotional intimate thing. If someone doesn’t know what I’m like inside my mind and still accepts me they can’t even get within 7 feet of me. I also am unlikely to say what’s in this mind. Someone would have to know I have a place I write and read to understand that I still don’t understand myself. They would have to read my journals I keep hidden. Buried even. I want to be accepted even if I don’t say what’s in my mind to them. I want them to just know somehow.

I have this someone. He’s the most important person in my life right now. He is very distant. Physically and emotionally. He is me only quiet. If he said more than he did I would panic. If he was closer than he is I would back away. It may be who I just am. It may be something that will change as I evolve into something else. I don’t know. I am always evolving. Although right now it feels like circling. I’m back into something I was and need to ré-evolve.

He is states away right now. He also has a way of feeling like he is right here with me. I can imagine it. I can feel things that can’t be seen. I can feel things other can’t. It’s not a super power. It’s a fantastic coping skill I have. I can get to place I feel someone is with me with my imagination. Except it can cause me grief. Like now. Because grief is surfaced. So wishing someone was here doesn’t feel like they are right now. Because I know wishing someone is still here won’t actually bring them back. So right now I can’t wish anyone was here. I wish everyone gone. So I can cry alone lost in the woods.

I found a trail I want to do. The map of it shows some terrain. A lot of switchbacks. A lot of water crossings. A lot of miles. It’s a loop. The kind I need so I can loop. Start and finish where I started. Circle back. re-evolve Not just the convenience of getting back to my car but it always helps me untangle my thoughts. Plus I don’t have to walk into the woods then turn around and walk back out. I see nothing twice. I do love in and out trails sometimes. Just to see it from a different angle. I don’t need the same view at a different angle I need all different angles right now.

I don’t research a trail. Ever. I look at the map and see what I could get into. I never read reviews. I never google further. I don’t need to know that one person thought the trail was marked well and the other didn’t. Or that one thought it was easy and another didn’t. Or that there is a down tree at mile marker 2. It is like reading your horoscope before the start of the day. I need to go into a trail with an open mind of what I will get from it. Not others. I don’t need to know what to follow or how to. I just need a map. Which isn’t always true either. I like the surprise of not knowing. Which is funny because I hate surprises. I keep a compass with me in case I ever need to stay a specific direction to get back out. But for the most part you just don’t leave the trail. Don’t wonder the woods aimlessly.

I had one time that I panicked. I took a trail with the goal of watching sunset. Like getting up to the top and sitting to watch the sun go down. And not try to will the sun down. Hurry it. I reached the top 3 hours before sunset. That’s lot of waiting for someone who can’t wait. But I did. I sat. With my feet dangling over and watched day turn to night. I didn’t read, wonder. Looks for rocks. Just sat. I was so bored. It was the most difficult thing I have done. Not true. I’ve done difficult things and waiting for sunset is not one. But that moment it was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. You feel this way in all difficult things.

Anyway. Sunset. As it always does. Only I watched. Then I didn’t want to leave. I wanted watch further. But then realized I would be walking back in the almost dark. The woods gets dark fast. This trail was also mostly walking on glades. The worst to follow. People stack rocks and use things to point for you to stay on trail. I did not stay on trail. Then I was following a dry creek bed. Then wondering aimlessly through a dark woods in southern Missouri.

I pictured dying. And being found like 100 feet from my car. This was just a little 4 mile trail. I also didn’t pack my compass and had no cell service. Or a cell. I left everything in the car. I turned around and headed back up. And started over and found where I went wrong. I just went wrong. This may not be good trail advice but it worked in this trail scenario. In a store we tell kids to stay and be found. Not look for us. We tell them to look for people who look official to help. What do we tell them in the woods lost? You are not lost. That’s what we tell them. There is always a way out. I’m proof. I’m a terrible navigator and even I would not sign up to be lead in the woods by me. But following me can lead to some incredible adventure. Lost and found then lost and found again.

It’s time for me to get lost then found again.