I don’t do simple sentences. Not yet and maybe never. To explain what I need, I have to really explain. Offer clues and context and descriptions of a word or feeling I am looking for. It’s a challenge to see if some can guess it correctly. Few can. I also may say nothing. Making people just guess or maybe give up.

“Oh, you mean you need space.”

Yes, that’s what I was trying to say by not saying anything at all. Or by saying everything at once.

“You need more? Less? Nothing? »

Why didn’t you just say so?

I don’t know how. These words aren’t there yet. They are not even complex sentences. They are stories untold even by me to me. So it can not be told to anyone else.

I apparently don’t like to write my thoughts out on Sunday’s. It’s a day of rest right? Except I don’t rest. Except I did. I woke and thought of writing about how complicated I am to tell others if I need something from them. It’s where it all went wrong you know. I didn’t say I needed more and I didn’t say I couldn’t do more. I didn’t say I couldn’t be more. I just couldn’t be. But neither could he. It is a shared blame to me. It’s also not a blame at all anymore. To me. I forgave myself. I am who I am and I also am who I didn’t know I was and am too. I can’t explain things well or I can explain them too well. Or I don’t at all.

I need very little. I was raised that way. I am not broken by not needing someone for every little thing. I am not even sure anymore I am broken. Or ever was. Just hurt. I spent the past few years taking care of myself. I also spent all the years before doing the same plus one. I just couldn’t find everyone’s things anymore. I need people to find their own things. Deal with their own things. So I can keep dealing with mine and keep finding mine. I have a lot of lost things. A lot of my own things to find.

I did rest. My legs are sore. Mostly my knees. They are older than the rest of me from doing all the things. I take life out on my knees. My feet are just the first impact. It vibrates in my knees. I squat for hours. Bent at the knees. I walk and move the knees for miles.

I went to work and I let my 6 year old fertilize plants for me. Remote learning. Remoteless. She pulled flower heads off plants so they can use their energy for roots. Biology class. She doesn’t have school right now so I’m in charge of what she learns. As I always am. I just sat and watched her learn. And rested.

We took the turtle out for a day trip. It was take your child and turtle to work day. He looks so bored, just banging into the corners of the tank all day. So we tossed him in a bucket of water and buckled him up in the car. Which is ridiculous. If I crash he goes flying out of the bucket. No way to buckle a turtle. He walked through my plants. He walked through the greenhouse. He hung out. He had a day of adventure while I had a day of rest. Like God says to that day. The universe said stop for a day. My knees said stop for a day.

I remembered an entire recipe. I don’t remember some things. I lost some chunks of memory from trauma and medications for a small amount of time. My brain froze it all to deal. Now it’s thawing. Recipes are melting right out of my noggin. I just got up and decided what I wanted to make then thought out the ingredients I would need and then realized I hadn’t been able to recall this recipe for so long. I’ve even tried. I couldn’t remember half and kept trying to make it and kept failing. It’s written down somewhere in an old life but even then I just knew it. Now I just know it again. Except I forgot pimentos like I always did.

What else will I recall? I know there is more, I know some will hurt. I don’t remember if it did or not. Maybe it will hurt less since I just hurt less? Maybe it will be easier. Maybe my brain has had some days of rest to rest to recall.

I woke one day years ago and just didn’t know where I was. Why I was in someone else’s house? Where my chairs were? Why I had blood soaking my wrist? I had apparently moved us to get away and didn’t remember. I didn’t know where he was? I was worried about him? I always know where he was and is? So I knew where not to be. It’s fuzzy. Because it seems ridiculous to recall. Like it didn’t happen but it did. I have the scars. I have the messages. It was all real but it didn’t get properly put in my head so I could properly recall it after days of rest. It is just gone.

Maybe that’s ok? Not to remember it all? Maybe it’s ok to sit here now and want to try so hard my face is squinted to see what else I can remember. I want to and also don’t. I don’t have the energy anymore. I tried and when I looked down to try I see I am wearing a shirt with a giant grease stain on it. From pizza. Right on my right breast. I just don’t care about what I’m trying to care about. I don’t think it matters to where and what’s next.

I am a little more anxious than normal which means I am a lot anxious. I can feel it in my neck. My heart is beating in my neck loudly. Almost to my ears again. I can also tell because I had an entire glass more of wine than I normally do before bed. I couldn’t get relaxed. I read all day an entire book I downloaded and then made dinner and cheesecake. It was relaxing. Or it was not? Because then I laid down and wasn’t worn out enough to sleep. I was too up. Then I chewed on all my fingers when I started to hear the interstate and all the background noises. I couldn’t get tired. Now my fingers are bleeding and healing from a night of unrest after a day of rest. It’s unfair. I want both. For the same reasons. I can’t just run myself to the ground just so I can sleep well? Except that’s how I sleep well.

A day of rest has created a monster this morning. I am unrested. Not irritable but just anxious again. I will have to nest and move today quickly to get back to a place I feel rested by not being rested. I did push ups. I can’t do push ups. That’s not the kind of strength I have. I also can’t do sit ups. Im also not that kind of strong. I was hoping I would get tired. I did not. I hurt from trying to do exercises I haven’t done since grade school and couldn’t even do in grade school. I just don’t have a lot of reasons to do push ups and sit ups. I never did. I don’t have core strength. I have leg strength.

I’ll undo this. I did it. So I know how to undo it. I know my limits with a single glass of wine and went one further to try and calm my thoughts. Then lost control of them. Then worked myself through a fitful uncontrolled thoughts sleep. Researched(obsessed)reasons I haven’t gotten my stimulus, googled deadly corona viruses, tried to find when the IRS would open again, tried to learn to French braid….Then ate my fingers till they bleed and tried to recall terrible memories so I wouldn’t feel them again. But would so I won’t feel them again. Then tried to do core strength exercises for no reason. Then gave up and figured I might just have to feel them again. For now recipes is all I’ve got and little core strength.

I once discovered an exotic moth. One we haven’t dealt with in our state or even the Midwest. Barely even the country. It’s not a landscape insect but a pest for growers. If it could survive outdoors it would be a devastating insect.

I found him while treating what I thought was a fungal issue with coral bells. The top of one of the crowns popped off to expose the inside of the crown had been tunneled like a borer had been in it. It was a larvae to a moth in the crown of the plants. I had been battling a water mold. At the time we had a grower developing early onset Alzheimer’s, so often there was erratic watering schedules, and a soil heavy on the wetting agent. This was all a recipe for disaster to begin with.

I eventually became diligent in the identification of this moth. Mostly because it was totally different than the thousands I had tried to make him be. I asked other growers. Some seemed bored and even irritated I might be suggesting it came from their plants. Which it had to of. I grow plants from people who grow plants who buy plants across the ocean. I reached out to a state who dealt with this pest. They confirmed my suspicion of the moth being an exotic. It was sent for testing.

How did this European moth get to my Midwest greenhouse? My mind is a network of paths. I took samples to the lab here in town where they sent it to be confirmed. The lady who took my moth sample ”lost” him the first time. I just happened to be swatting my hands through the air pretending to catch this one when I actually did. Catching another was going to be very difficult. I almost wish I had one pressed in a book as a memory. Except I can’t smash them. It’s not everyday you find an insect from so far away and so unknown.

What happened though was I dreamt about moths for weeks. Twice in a nightmare form. The larvae consuming me. The control consuming me. It’s one thing I can’t control. Even in the end the moth could win. If all growers don’t work together to eradicate him, he will find a way to sustain life. That is how the world works. If I ended up in Europe somehow by accidentally getting stuck in some luggage or brought there on accident I would likely find a way to not just survive but thrive.

This moth has a host of plants it will love. If it makes its way to a warmer climate where he can survive the winters or the winters allow them to survive by becoming mild he will eliminate many plants very quickly. Then what, move into our crops? Taking out corn crops? It had the perfect structure for its likes. Then we will run out of corn? Then what? I can’t let that happen.

The thing with invasive exotic species is we can’t stop them, or even control them, we can try to make their living less desirable, starve them, not plant what they love, remove what they do. I spent ten years on campus stalking the emerald ash borer, looking, hunting, obsessing, I was convinced it was here but I couldn’t find the evidence, little did I know then it was just way up in the canopy. By the time I saw the symptoms in the trees it was too late. I spent so long looking for larvae that I found we had other issues, other larvae in our trees already weakened by the one I couldn’t find. I couldn’t eat noodles for years as they looked like larvae to me.

We removed over 500 Ash trees, I did most of the work myself to scout for the larvae. Some trees didn’t have it but were removed to avoid hazards down the road. Every tree had to be evaluated. I learned to rig trees during this time, I spent days in the 80 foot lift pregnant. I’m convinced it’s why she loves heights. To this day I’m still furious I haven’t seen a live larvae of the emerald ash borer or the beautiful insect himself.

I took this chance to re-forest the campus with natives, and more diverse selection to try and lessen the risk of another invasive pest. My little thumbprint will be seen in the tree canopy years from now. I hope.

I travel to Michigan as much as I do to hopefully find this insect. I just want to see him, myself. I’ve seen the damage he can do. The forests gone, streets wiped of trees, my campus. But I need to see it to believe it. I need to find him. To believe it’s true.

I’m obsessed with exotic species. It may even be why I love plants. Because they attract bugs. It is fascinating that they make it all this way from home. Like little hitch hikers, adventurers. Blazing trails for insects across the world. I imagine them communicating and networking thought channels we don’t understand or believe in. Do they feel the same about us? Do they feel?

I drafted this weeks ago in hopes I wouldn’t have to add that the moth survived the winter. I have been stalking this moth for weeks. In hopes it isn’t back. I struggled to kill them. After getting to know them so well I didn’t want to eradicate them. I poisoned them by watering with chemicals so the borer wouldn’t survive. I couldn’t freeze my greenhouse this winter properly from a mild winter. The moth could likely survive. So far I’m in mid May and have seen no signs he survived. I also grew very few of his favorite food. But now I brought in my largest shipment of his favorite food. I imagine I am wrong. There is likely one resilient little bug that will bug me. Like bugs do. They bug me. It’s their job and their name. Their purpose of life.

I won’t be able to smash the one. I can’t handle the smeared dust of a beautiful moth. I’m both a terrible grower and a great one. I can’t kill bugs without it bugging me.

To this day it surprises me I have never seen a live emerald ash borer. They are beautiful little insects. I have to quit looking. I did. Sort of. But it bugs me. I know that when I’m not looking is when I will see it. Like I will be running late and looking for my keys and look down and think I see an earring. It will be an exotic borer. Or I will be in the greenhouse not looking and the moth will land right on the nose of an employee. I won’t be able to smack it on their face. It will bug me. Like bugs do.

I don’t have anything to sort out. Actually I do but I can’t get it sorted out. I don’t have anything to compare it to. Just my imagination of what good company is. I can’t even begin to think of it. I’m also too tired. I’m working too much and I know it. I’m turning to work. To cope. It’s not going to end well.

I was told being hurt doesn’t stop your goals. My first thought was yes it does. Or it can. But then I thought if I broke my leg I would still want to walk. Maybe even need to. It just might hurt. Like the heart. It will too. Yet the pain was so unbearable Im not sure I can do it again. I can’t sort it, can’t and don’t want to think it and am too tired to anyway. I need goals. I need some company goals. I need to trick my brain into thinking it is walking though pain to reach a goal. That it’s going to hurt but it’s going to be worth it. I need company goals.

Lots of people. Well not lots, but maybe 6 have said they want to go backpacking with me. It sounds amazing, it sounds fun, it sounds like an adventure… it was. But it was also not any of those things. In the end no one ever actually wants to go. It’s probably like when I say I want to go to Paris. I do not. It sounds great. I just do not. It’s not even in a top ten list of places I want to go. It’s just not a goal.

I can’t even imagine walking in the woods with another grown up for days or even hours. There is so much that seems so personal to me. So much that I’m comfortable with on my own but never before has anyone seen it. It’s why I go there. I can be who I want without any judgement from others. Unless birds judge. Which they often sound like they do. Birds are my company. Good company.

I can’t wrap my brain around waking up in a tent with someone in there. Having company in a tent. Peeing in the woods with someone. Someone I took with me not the someone’s I don’t know are there. Crying in front of someone when I have to convince myself to keep going. Convincing someone else to keep going who is crying. Talking to someone. Or not. Singing my songs and not theirs. Listening to their songs and not mine. Worrying about them. Wandering if they worry about me.

I want someone there. I want company. I don’t know if it’s time unless I just do it. Just deal with the pain. Walk right through the pain that is still so painful to walk through. I’m bored. My last trip was boring. It’s hard to say that since my last trip was on the bluffs of the pictured rocks national lakeshore for 40 plus miles. It was not a place to feel bored. But I often turned to show someone something and no one was there. I didn’t have company. It haunted me my entire trip. So much that I wanted it over and walked 18 miles in a day to end it. I was mad I didn’t have good company. I was mad I didn’t know what good company even was. Mad I was in a place I had to find the place to be in to welcome good company. Mad all I’ve ever known is bad company. I was mad. In one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been.

I’ve never had good company. Not for fishing or hiking, or camping, or cooking or shopping, or dealing…nothing. No good company for so long I am now not sure what it is. I’m also certain I am fine without it. But curious what good company is. Is it someone comfortable enough also with out to be able to just be good company? Someone who also feels a little unsure what it is? Is it just something not to even think of since I have nothing to compare it to except bad? Is it just something, but nothing to even consider and just let happen? Maybe good company will just appear when I quit looking for it? Will I know? I’m usually not paying attention. I’ll walk right by. Never notice. Good company will be missed while looking at something else.

I think it would be fun to fish with someone except all my fishing’s with someone were bad company. So why fish? Because I love to eat fish, I want someone to fish for me but with me but not be bad company. I want good fishing company.

I’ve stared at my coffee cup for 13 minutes. I watched the little cream swirl swirl. Until it stopped. Which is when I gave myself permission to drink my coffee.

I haven’t googled anyone. I thought my son having a life I know nothing of would trigger me to want to google the heck out of him. Then I would just google others. Old boyfriends. People from high school. People from grade school. People from other people’s high schools. My ex. My friend. Then their friends. Then maybe all the people who are in the world. Maybe even if there are people in other worlds ….But I didn’t google. I stared at my coffee. With my free time. My few minutes to just sit and have coffee with myself. I also didn’t tell myself not to google. I was telling myself not to drink my coffee until the cream stopped swirling.

I don’t have free time. What I have is time that I am doing something when I sometimes try to do something else. Like drive. That’s enough for me. I don’t need more. If you add texting or eating or messing with the radio I will not drive well. If you even just add driving I don’t drive well. I’m an easily distracted driver. It’s boring and extremely dangerous. It gets me places. That’s it’s only perk. If I had my way I wouldn’t drive. When I have my way I walk. It makes me have to leave for work 2.5 hours early and I’m home by bedtime but then I wasn’t bored or in a car crash.

It sounds like I fear driving. I don’t. People crash. I’ve been in crashes and crashed into. I know some people who died in one. They were very important someones to me. It happens every minute or hour or so. I don’t know the statistics but once someone said I was more likely to die driving to work than in a plane crash. I took this personal. Because it’s true. Many people are multi tasking when I’m on the road. In the air it is just a few other planes and a pilot in charge. And a crash is likely certain death. In a car it’s twisted metal and things to be cut from then they have to put you back together so people can look at you before you are buried or worse you might never walk again. So yes, it’s a little fear. Not fear of driving. Not fear of dying. Fear of living. It takes work. Hard work. Concentration.

The main thing is I didn’t google other people’s lives to measure them up to mine or to see where I failed or to see other people’s happy. I did however google that there is a word for people who eat bugs. I’m not one, but I needed to know if there was one. Entomophage is the act of someone who eats just bugs. I haven’t gone any further to see why or where these people are in the world. I imagine it’s an island that just doesn’t have a lot of protein sources. Or underprivileged societies that eat just bugs. It seems it would take a lot of bugs to eat them to gain anything. So it seems a strange act. However, eating anything that was alive seems strange.

But I didn’t google, I had coffee with myself. I needed coffee with myself. I’m busy all day. I’m busy all night. I am busy all morning. I don’t have time to do anything else while I’m doing everything else.

I don’t want to eat lunch and also work. I don’t want to wash dishes and also text people. I don’t want to walk into stores right now with confusing signs. They say one thing and practice another. I don’t want to comfort others when I’m the one who needs comforted.

My bizarre desire to be held is getting bizarrer. I can’t listen to anyone talk to me because I’m too concerned with being held by them. Doesn’t matter who it is. I was offered a hug. I hadn’t caught up with the town horticulturist since this all happened. I can tell he is working less during this virus because his plant beds show it. He has thistle everywhere. Hé came in to see us. He asked, I said he died. He pulled his memory of his father dying and I could see tears. He said, I don’t care about the rules you need a hug. I did. He did. I cried again.

My son gave me his beats to try this morning, because he is up again. In my time. Thèse are his ear buds. This is what he gets for being up now. He connected them and everything for me. I have music playing while I’m writing. It’s weird. He is playing with the turtle and I can’t hear him. Because we are the kind of people who play with turtles and not want to hear anything else going on. It’s weird. I can feel him walking around. I can feel the music but I can not listen to it. Or I can’t write. Or both. I can usually listen to music in two ways. When cooking and when in my grower greenhouses. Not when I drive, not when others talk. Not when I hike. Those are times to listen to others or myself times.

My greenhouse is when everything comes naturally to me. I can grow plants with my eyes closed. I’ve tried. I can close my eyes and keep watering. I can not sleep while watering. I have tried. I have been that tired. That sure I could keep working with little thought. I have thousands of plants waiting for me today. I am behind. The coronavirus made everyone come out of the woodwork to want plants. It’s all they seem to have. I’m their hope. I kept growing when things shut down in hopes of it reopening. It did. I was out of plants in a single weekend. My suppliers were also shut down. It’s hard to decide to grow plants to an uncertain. Anyone who is a grower keeps growing. We can’t help it. We are growers because we look for growth. We look past all the other steps and look for the opportunity to grow. Steps 1-11 of grief. No thanks. I need to grow. I’ll take step 12 please. The others can wait. I don’t have time to google people.

I like to see what comes up when nothing but everything is coming up. Not a single solid thing I’m stuck on. I’m not even sitting where I usually sit. I can’t. My daughter took all the kitchen chairs and made a fort. It was engineering day. She has to build and design. Per me. It’s part of my remote learning for her. Because we are remoteness. I’m controlling her education right now. And its not remotely. It’s hands on. So I’m sitting on my sofa which I had to climb over and under the fort to get to,with my coffee which is breaking my coffee on sofa rule. It’s new and it’s my first ever and I drop things like a child learning to walk and carry coffee through a fort. She will make an excellent engineer. If she wants to.

My cats are behaving oddly. They have taken to licking the sides of the tub and my shampoo container after a shower. I open the curtain and they both are sitting there staring at me waiting to lick the tub. I’m wondering if their iron could be low. When I was pregnant I craved eating soap. I didn’t, well I licked it once but never ate it, I was just curious and apparently hungry for soap which lead the doctor to say I needed extra iron or I could also crave eating rocks. Which made me even more curious that I struggled to take the iron to know if it would be true. My cats are just confused about the new routine which is no routine.

I didn’t want to get up. I was cozy in my bed listening to the birds and the interstate. Both seemed quieter than normal. Is that because I’m quieter than normal? Normally the interstate sounds like it’s in my head. The birds in my room. This morning they felt like background noise to blankets cooled slightly from the cool spring breeze . I could have kept laying there. I really don’t have to work until later today as I work longer today. But I know I will lay there and spend the time debating why I should lay there not actually lay there. Then the birds and the interstate will come back in my room with me. Plus I need to move tropical plants. So I need a longer than long day.

I dreamt I was left at the alter. By my ex. Odd right? It was even odder because his mother was also getting married and to someone I don’t know. I’m not even sure if it was his mother it looked like her. But it was a double wedding. Except when I looked down my groom was missing. That’s how dreams are. Nonsense. Everyone was wearing masks. Which is also nonsense. But they had them over their eyes too. Again, non-sense, except is it? Scary world, just cover your eyes, don’t look. As I was walking down the stairs. Which for some reason was inside a castle I once worked for, I look in the crowd and everyone is sitting away from each other with giant tropical plants between them. Because my subconscious is telling me I need to move plants and my subconscious is saying people are too far away from each other. Because they are. I couldn’t grasp anything more. I was wearing a dress that looked like I made it from curtains. I cried in my sleep. It woke me. I felt like my throat hurt from screaming about something. Probably being stood up at my wedding day and having too many tropical plants and masks. Then I woke.

My son is up. He stays up all night long playing games. He talks deeper and it’s annoying me this morning. He is becoming a man. He is behaving oddly, like the cats, because there is no structure or routine in the world anymore. What is a preteen to do all day long with no school? One who doesn’t grasp or understand remote learning? If it were like 1920 maybe he could get out in the fields and plant rice or harvest or do something. I don’t know what people did in the early 1900. Especially during the Spanish flu. It’s the early 2000’s and no one knows what to do. And it’s during coronavirus not the flu. Maybe we could plant rice? But I let him play games. I just do. I don’t have rice fields. Or any fields. He will straighten this out. I can’t make him. I don’t control him. Just the access to WiFi.

The sense of normal has to come back. We can’t control the world. I wish it weren’t true. But it is. I’ve spent years learning to not control anything but myself and maybe my toddler. And to operate equipment. And also I control the WiFi’s in the house. I control little else. I wish we could just all coop up and avoid for ever but we can’t. We have to live. I want to believe they will find the mask thing is not even doing anything because it turns out to just be all wrong. Or they find some mysterious answer why some get it and some don’t. Or they make a vaccine. Or it just goes away. Or maybe it’s a conspiracy. Or maybe it will get worse. The more we try to control it the worse it’s going to get is my fear. People are getting angry. I feel tension from my customers waiting in longer lines. I feel them irritated when I step away from them to show I know they are afraid and I can’t really tell. I know they are. Some aren’t. I’m not. Except I am.

I am afraid. But I am also going to keep living my life. I walked to a restaurant yesterday and went to open the door to go in and it was locked. I’m an idiot. I can’t go in places. My habits are to go into places still. I could see the staff looking at me like I was an idiot. Then I walked back got my car and drove the 300 feet to the drive through where the lady scratched her nose and face the whole time she was delivering my food. She also grazed my hand lightly. Was she not afraid? Didn’t they tell her? She isn’t supposed to touch me.

I went to another drive through once where they handed a large cup to you to put your card in and then they take the card out. It didn’t change anything. Except adding a cup to the process that everyone touches. He wiped the cup down but just the inside. Why wouldn’t he also wipe the card before touching it? The whole thing was a nightmare to watch. The whole time he is touching his mask and face. He isn’t in the medical field, it takes time.

We tell our customers to pick up a hand sanitizer container to spray it on their hands. But never wipe that container down. Hundreds touch it. I can’t figure out the gloves thing. Some wear gloves like they are doing dishes, some are winter gloves. Se those cheap fuzzy ones that cost like a dollar. They walk around touching things with their dirty gloves. Some rubber medical gloves. They litter my parking lot.

A lady told me my mask was dirty and gross. I was offended. I work in dirt. The expectation of a clean mask is ridiculous. I touch my face now more than I have in my life. It is haunting my dreams now. I am being controlled and consumed with mask fears. It’s creeping into my sleep now.

Now my son is actually up and out here. He made coffee. He is talking and playing with the odd confused cats. I explained this is my time. I get 1.5 hours a day where I am alone to write. With no noises except the ones I am trying to control. He is not mad but overly nice. I control the WiFi. With a touch of a button I can pause devices connected to it. I paused it to make him quit clicking his controller so I can write. He knows getting mad won’t get it back. He knows he had to cooperate. I love this little control I have. If anything ever breaks to make it not work it would frustrate me. He tells me my oldest son has a girlfriend. He saw it on Instagram, he shows me. I didn’t want to see. I miss him too much. I will struggle to not open an account and obsessively research his life without me. Which will lead me to obsessively research everyone’s life without me and I will quit researching my life with me. I don’t have solid control of myself not to want to control others. To make them want to be with me. I just barely know I control just me, little else. Just like two things. Which all come back to me. I control me.

When my one cat drinks water she has to scratch at the floor at the same time. She also then knocks the whole thing over spilling it. I’ve tried to control what bowls to use and make it harder for her. It’s probably why she licks the tub now. She doesn’t like her bowl raised off the ground. She can’t figure out why there is space between the bowl and the ground now. I’ve confused the cat. By trying to control the cat.

I don’t even really like cats much. I like them I just don’t love them. I’m not a cat person as people say. I’m not any kind of animal person. I like all of them kind of equally. Some I couldn’t have as pets. Some I want as pets. My cats are more entertainment than anything. Somewhat annoying. Mostly just they lay around and bat around my daughters LOL pieces and put dents in the pillows on the back of the new sofa. I don’t have cats on the sofa rules just coffee. But I have no chairs for the morning and I can be careful. Now the cat has jumped up here to see why I am on the sofa. I’m just hanging out with my cat and coffee on my new sofa and my son chatting. A little less noise than usual. Cats are just kind of ok. But you can’t control cats. Or coronavirus. Just yourself. And the WiFi. Really just yourself.

A friend of mine died. I knew he did. I knew he was going to. When my old coworker called me I knew. He didn’t have to say. I didn’t guess. He also knew I knew. Sometimes you know. But you don’t. I just asked,when? He said Saturday. I knew then too. His wife, who is also my hairdresser called the store and was talking to the florist, the florist says casually, hey, your hairdresser is on the phone, want to chat? No. I do not want to chat. It’s the busiest we have ever been and I can’t even get a hair cut. I also know she is going to tell me he died. Or was about to. I knew and didn’t want to know.

Im trying to meet people and everyone keeps dying. Not the people I’m trying to meet, although they will die too. Everyone who meets me right now is meeting the me in the middle of grieving people who keep dying. Because people die. It’s life. Then we die. No one escapes it.

Living is what is hard. Dying seems to come so easy and naturally to others. They just die. The living is over. The hard is over. The easy is done. You are dead. Not alive. I also don’t know. Maybe it’s hard to die too. I’ve never died. I know people who died. And you can’t ask them. They died. I’ve seen someone die. My dad. It didn’t look hard, for him. He looked peaceful.

I have very mortal thoughts. Just thoughts that say. We die. And I know it. It’s not a secret revealed to me or to others. The secret is life.

How to live.

How do you live? Just don’t die? Just stay alive. Just don’t die. No that’s how to stay alive. Just do not die. Be careful. Be cautious. Make good decisions. They don’t change the outcome of death but they do show it just wasn’t time to die. It was time to live. In hindsight. You made it through living the day because it wasn’t your day to die. You didn’t just know. No one knew and does know. Except someone knew.

But I did know. I just didn’t want to know. I had been knowing for awhile and knew it was coming.

Im tired. I’m losing moisture from crying. I’m tired of crying in front of staff and customers. But until someone says it’s not ok I am going to keep doing it. I don’t need anyone to say anything or do anything. I just have too many tears from too many loses. Too many people who’s life is over. Even people I don’t know.

I am fighting the urge to google obituaries. Read about people who died. Read about how they lived. See how to live. Find the answer. They have to have it. It’s written in their story. Their life. How they lived. Not how they died. Stories of struggles and battles and births and who they will join again. Who to say you are so sorry to. Where they will be. Where they won’t be again.

How to live? Just keep breathing. Keep your shoulders down a little. Relax my neck. Don’t hold my breath in fear its the last. Afraid to let it out. Cry. Let all of the cry out. Laugh. Let it out. Be angry. Let it. Let it all out. Let it all go. So you can live.

There is not a secret to this. No secret of life. It’s hard. It just is. I don’t have a secret to get me through the day. I just have a single minute one at a time to live. Then I will die. I won’t know. No one else will know. But yet someone will know. There is someone who knows. I just don’t know it.

I skipped a day. Not intentionally, well sort of intentionally. I woke and went. “Nope I don’t want to get up. ” Then laid there and thought of my dad, my sore knees and my failed marriage. Again. I repeat, again.

I may be a moderate repetitive thinker now but that means the moderate that is left is the moderate that is both my favorite and least favorite to repeat think. To scratch at. To find the answer to. My failed marriage needs an answer. And just like anything else I think at, it won’t get one because it’s not a simple math problem. It’s not even a complicated math problem. It’s not even a problem. Yet it has surfaced. It’s trumping all things to think. I actually usually toss it back in the pile and pull something more thinkable up. Avoidance at its best. I don’t need to over think it or think it. Except I do. I need to grieve it. Again.

I need it to die and be dead and be just something that got me to here. I need to be sadder than I am angry. Or I need the anger to be sadder. Or I need it to just go away. To just get over it.

When I let things go I feel I am forgetting something important. For this, it’s the pain. When it’s gone. What’s left? No pain. No pain not gain. I would apparently gain more since there was pain. I have gained more. I don’t need more pain. To gain again. Except that’s the words. So I keep remembering how much it hurt and how hard I didn’t try. I need new pain. This is old pain. I will not regain anything. I already gained for. This painful.

I can hear people saying it wasn’t anything I did wrong. Except I did. I put petite tomatoes in the chili once. I didn’t have socks and clothes clean and folded and out neatly away. I didn’t wash the dishes sometimes. I didn’t mow well. I didn’t not cry. I didn’t take short showers. I didn’t make the bed. Feed the kids perfect meals. Keep the baseboards clean. Make sure no one spilled on the white carpet. Keep everyone quiet. Tiptoe lighter. Love more. Or less. Or not at all. I didn’t do so much.

But I also didn’t get to sit and read, take time to walk, take trips to the woods to unwind, have my socks clean, eat petite diced tomatoes, know what eggs I liked. I didn’t get to love who I am. I didn’t get to show someone how to. I didn’t even know how to.

It’s my icky story. It’s half my life gone. It’s my pain. And my gain. I had an image of what being married is/was. I kept waiting for it. I kept trying for it. I kept wondering if I was wrong. It sits today in my head still. I have googled it. I love google. It can give you answers. Even if they are wrong. I can find an answer. If you dig and dig and dig you can find one that suites you. It never presented my answer. Even google failed me.

I know what marriage is not. By being not married anymore. I’m just not married anymore. It’s dead. It needs buried and not thought through. It’s surfaced because I am interacting with others more than I normally do. Because I’m grieving and this is also a dead to me. I suspect I will pull up all my losses one by one to see how they still feel. All waiting in line to come sit and chat for a bit to be buried again. But I’m also less guarded. I talk more openly about my losses, my pains and gains. I even admitted how guarded I am by showing a height with my hands in the air of a wall keeping others away. Way above my head. Because I see it. Because I built it. It’s my gain to keep away pain.

I know how to keep it up and I know where to let it down. Don’t I? If it is down or just able to be peaked through is it safe? I don’t need a game of Jenga with my life. Piece by piece removing things to expose lots of open holes to make it just lean and be weak. It will always fall. It depends on who pulls the last piece. I fear I will intentionally pull the weak one. To watch it fall before the other. It will fall. Unless you just leave the game before it gets weak. But I want to play again. To try. To see what happens. I’d like a good game of Jenga.

My marriage is dead. Not the thought of marriage again. I don’t have thoughts that say never again. I have thoughts that say not yet. I don’t think I did anything wrong. I think things were just wrong. I also think I was distracted with raising a child with special needs to see how wrong it was. To see that the expectations given to me were wrong. I don’t care how clean my baseboards are. Sometimes I look at them still and think of how clean they could be but baseboards get dirty, life is messy. I don’t have clean baseboard goals. I gain nothing. When I can see like spaghetti sauce or maybe chocolate or a bit of oatmeal I might clean it. But it’s just not that important to me if there is a small layer of dust on that tiny little edge that meets the wall.

I am more distracted and impatient than usual. It’s simple stress. It’s simple I’m worked to much. It’s simple I’m being talked to more by people. It’s simple thoughts of topics to be on too many to try and not be on one or two. Dead marriage. Dead father.

Grief is pulling at all my grief. It’s tugging at things I’ve lost. All my loss. It’s trying to mess with me. I’ve buried this marriage business a thousand times. I don’t need it dug up and sat back with me. Actually maybe I did. It came back up and sat there all dead with me and it just looked dead. It didn’t look interesting and almost alive. It came and it went. It got exactly one day to sit and try and see the life that once was. But it’s a once was.

It was Mother’s Day yesterday. I don’t do days. With titles. I think of people on days when I want to. I just don’t like being told it’s the day to do things. I don’t like to be told what to do. It’s that simple. I love my mother dearly, she is still alive and someday won’t be alive. My day was thinking of her. But I have been. She lost her husband. I take her diet cokes and mow terrible for her. And clean puppy poop. And carry laundry. I sit with her. I hug her. I tell her things. She isn’t dead. Dad is. She is hurting every day and I love her every day not just the day I’m told to. I don’t love her more that day either. I’m also busy that day helping others love theirs that do more or the same or not at all but are told to.

I am also a mother. It’s not my day it’s just a day. I don’t want my youngest thinking she needs to show me this day more or less than any other. She made me a painting. It didn’t make me cry. She wanted to make me so happy I cried. That was her goal. She said she remembered that I told her sometimes I’m crying happy tears and she wanted to see me not cry sad tears. Because My dad died and I am so sad. It worked. I am now. I’m a fantastic mother. I taught her to see my sad and want to show not sad. To see sad is also happy. With tears. Or that sad is sad. I don’t even know what I taught her. Except she knows it’s ok to cry both ways. She is going to be a great mother. Because I am. Because my mother is.

I just needed a day. A single day to see my gains. I can still feel the pain. It’s not deep inside. It’s more of a surface annoyance. I’m just moderately annoyed now with my loss of a marriage. I’m a moderate repeat thinker and now a moderately annoyed, what? Person? It’s nothing. I’m not moderately annoyed with this at all. It isn’t itchy like some things that annoy me. Its barely a surface annoyance. It’s just gone. I’m just moderately nothing. Except the repeat thinker. That’s still there. My gain is outweighing my pain. I will gain more because I will be pained again. I’m ready for new pain so I can gain more. It’s the saying. No pain, no gain.

Why do we feel all alone?

I was asked this. I couldn’t answer. It has so many answers. It varies on situations. When we say I’m all alone. When did we say it? Stranded in the desert? All alone. Paying bills, raising kids, making meals, doing a job. All alone. Grieving. All alone. In a room with one person. All alone. A room with thousands. All alone. A billion. All alone.

I’ve never been stranded in a desert so I’m not sure where that situation came from but I’ve been stranded all alone and it can feel like being in a desert. All alone.

I used to feel the most all alone when I am lonely. I am lonely when I am all alone. But it depends. Stranded all alone didn’t make me feel lonely. I had to feel resourceful. I had to survive. All alone. I had to get to somewhere and to find a way to no alone. On my own.

I am raising my kids on my own But not all alone. I am rarely lonely. Because I am raising kids. They don’t make me feel lonely. There isn’t time. Sometimes they make me feel crowded.(insert smile).But never all alone.

I was told once by one therapist to change the words. To keep doing it until my brain is wired to believe it true. Since my wiring is so tangly it takes some time to de-wire. But this is wired. I can’t feel all alone anymore. I feel on my own. When I say it I feel strength and resilience. I see the all alone all gone. I see the single word untangled into a phrase that gave me strength. On my own.

I am not grieving all alone. Many are grieving right now. The world is full of grief. Anyone who meets me right now, I am grieving but not all alone grieving.

But, my grief is making me feel lonely. I want to cuddle and snuggle. I want to be rocked to sleep. I want to hold hands. With grown ups. I looked at a man yesterday, at his warm soft shoulder and chest in his warm soft sweatshirt and wanted to just lay my head down and be held. He looked cuddleable and I wanted cuddles. So I wouldn’t feel lonely. But not all alone. This may sound strange but I can’t look at people the same anymore with their masks on. Their masks aren’t showing fear anymore to me, its hiding it, it’s a mask. Now I am looking at the tops of their heads and their shoulders. I can’t look in their eyes or I may see their lonely. That they feel all alone. Which could make me feel all alone again. Because they feel all alone, but I can’t tell because now everyone is hiding it all alone. But I want to cuddle. Just not on my own.

I tried to sort the all alone thing out by researching(googling) the core origin of the word. It’s not that interesting. It also did not work. I mostly ended up somehow in a rabbit hole on Indians of North America. All on my own.

I couldn’t over think it. I’m not as wired to anymore. It’s an adjustment that I don’t see until I see it. Then believe it. By feeling it on my own. My wires are just a little less tangled. I rewired me all on my own. And, not all alone.

I am not all alone and can’t explain why. It could be that the universe is just that big too me now. That I have realized that I am that small. If I think of it in a numbers way I actually feel more lonely even a little anxious. There are billions of people in the world, how can you possibly feel all alone?? Some say. Adding others to me doesn’t make me more. It could even make me less. It doesn’t add up to a whole me. It makes me feel I have company. Lots of guests, lots of all aloners and energies to feel. Lots of people and lots of panic just thinking of billions of people in the world.

I have to use a more universal thought. By just using the universe. By just digging into some astrophysics. By looking beyond the people and looking beyond the skyline and just seeing the universe in a more universal way. From within. Myself. On my own.

SUB TITLE: OVER AND OVER AGAIN, LESS

My therapist gave me an assignment. Likely that’s why I called this story therapist assignment. Then added a subtitle when I really wanted it to be something else. I won’t do it. This assignment. It might turn into a story about why I can’t or won’t or it may end up being what she asked. I haven’t thought about it.

Yesterday we zoomed. Yes. Zoomed. That’s a verb for meeting with someone over an app but in a therapy portal. We zoomed through this therapy portal. It sounds like something out of a movie. One specifically that I can’t think of but has Bette Midler in it and it was a book. Where the dad goes missing to some other portal. And flowers turn into people. Where the red fern grows came to mind first. Or time travelers wife…it’s going to bother me.

I am avoiding already. I started avoiding as soon as she told me what to do. Am I avoiding or just focusing on what needs to be thought?

She did an assessment yesterday to see where I am. I am in this portal. I suffer from repetitive thoughts. Suffer is the right word. Yesterday I felt at my worst. I felt selfish and worthless. Over and over again. I was being told these things. Made to feel them. They are triggers. No one wants to be called selfish but especially me. I heard it for years. It was back. I heard it over and over again. Same voice. Not mine. He was louder than me yesterday.

I don’t know if I woke early enough to write about this. You dont even know the assignment yet. And I also won’t be able to do it. I snoozed for a half hour. Every nine minutes I laid there not thinking of it. Not creating a story of my worth. I laid there thinking of anything but. Over and over again.

I told her it wasn’t a great day to assess me. She disagrees in all her therapy ways and says it’s the best day to. If I’m better than, at my worst I’m better, if I’m not, or the same, then I’m at my worst and still fine. Just fine. Got that? Me neither.

The questions are the same. Very repetitive for an assessment for repetitive thoughts. You would think they would make them very different so I didn’t repeat the answers. Or hear the same questions so I think Of them over and over again.

I’ve said over and over again several times and now have Tim McGraw song stuck in my head. Over and over again. The one with some random guy who sings with him that never made sense. I would have to change it because he says over and over again over and over again. It bothered me.

She tells me when we are done I’ve gone from severe repetitive thinking to moderate. Like way low moderate. From way up severe. Borderline consume severe. On my worst day. In the midst of a great loss during a global pandemic. Not bad she says. Not bad. She may be nodding her head but in this portal I can’t look at her. It’s too weird to also see my head in the top of the screen. Looking back at me. I can’t decide who to look at me or her. Or the floor so she just sees the top of my head. I don’t know what she sees. It’s too hard to see. Because I can’t feel it. My last assessment was in January.

I am immediately cautious of this news. Did I answer honest enough. Zooming isn’t the same as sitting in a room with her. I can’t feel them. Did I answer hastily to end it? Did I really think about the questions? Should I have thought about them longer? Dig deeper? Repetitively thought of what she said to repetitively think of what I should have said to what she said? No I’m now a moderate repetitive thinker. I can’t be consumed by it. Just moderately.

She is a great listener. It’s her job. But what I like about her the most is she tells me she suffers too. She never says we all do. But her specifically. I feel better knowing my therapist breaks down like clock work every two weeks. She can’t be bothered, she is bitchy, and irritable and feels like she is alone. I secretly wonder if it is today. Or tomorrow. When was her last break down day? I feel relief. I’m not alone. I know this anyway. Yet to hear it feels one step better than just guessing.

I took my shower really well. To avoid. It took 14 minutes longer than usual. I am worried I had spider eggs in my hair. I haven’t brushed it all week. I just keep washing it and letting it air dry. I like the way it looks. Like a sexy beach I’ve been surfing in salt water and live carefree enough to let it air dry. But I feared today it was becoming a bit too much of a nest. I also couldn’t get it brushed. It’s gone too unbrushed. I will need detangler like a child.

I thought all night of my plants. Not what I’m supposed to think. Except I don’t have the time to. It’s going to be below freezing tonight on the night before Mother’s Day weekend. Biggest weekend in plant world. I have to make sure they are all inside and covered when I don’t have many inside and covered places. Cover your plants! I don’t want to think of my value. I can’t be bothered with it today.

I am almost ready to just stop writing. If I try to think of what she wants me to think it gets stuck. Is it still in the portal? Is my value and worth somewhere else? No it’s not. I have other things to think of. That’s what moderate repetitive thinking is?

I have value and worth. I just can’t describe it. I can only describe movies and songs today. She wants a good proper list of reasons I can think of that I’m not selfish. Reasons I think I have value. I can’t come up with any. I will not get this assignment done today. It didn’t have to be. It can be done any day. On a day I can think about it. Repetitively think of how I am not selfish to replace how I am. Was? Never was? Except I am now a moderate over thinker. So I can’t quite get it today. I need to just regular think it. Let it wiggle in between other normal regular moderate thinking.

I know I’m kind I just don’t have a list of reasons how I know I’m kind. I know some that show Im not. Not not kind just ways I don’t do unkind. Wait, what? now I’m confused. I know I don’t hurt others intentionally. I know I don’t make others feel like they are selfish. I know I don’t make others feel they are worthless or have no value. That they are to be ashamed. I know I’m kind by the way some treat me now. Not all, but some. Not everyone is kind. Not everyone knows how to be. Some aren’t because of things that have happened to make them unkind. They once were and no one gave them an assignment to list ways they are or aren’t. It’s not about me. I’m not selfish.

My dad died. I wanted him to. Not always. Just those last moments, I let go of him. For him. It wasn’t about me. I’m not selfish. My mom couldn’t. She still can’t. It doesn’t make her selfish and me not. Their dynamic was a bond that was different than mine and his. Husband and wife like my parents are two wholes that made a one. She didn’t lose her other half she lost an entire whole. But I couldn’t fight to keep him here just for me. In my mind I know my mom finally did. I heard her whisper it’s ok to go. She didn’t mean it though. I didn’t really either. I whispered I’ll take care of mom. It’s ok to go.

I didn’t want to cry today. I didn’t want anything to turn into tears. I cry every chance I get. I cried yesterday watering plants and a lady asked if I was ok. I said no, my dad died. She said Oh my God!! Like right now? I said no, it just feels like it was right now. I couldn’t read her expressions with her mask covering half her face. I can’t read people anymore. It’s all eyes. Eyes freak me out.

I still can’t think of that movie. I can’t repetitive think as well. I can only sort of moderately think of it. I keep describing it in my head but then stop.

I mean I really want to know it but I can’t let it consume my day. I can’t let someone telling me I’m selfish consume my day. I have plants to consume my day. I am consumed enough.

It’s not Bette Midler. That’s why. It’s Oprah Whinfry. Still Rees Witherspoon. I was thinking of Hocus Pocus. A Wrinkle In Time is what the movie is. See now I can think of plants. Moderate repetitive thinking is letting me get so much more done. If I look close I came up with some reasons I’m not selfish. I even wrote it. Said it. Because I know it. Because I’m not selfish. I can’t even let geese get hit by a car. And I don’t really like geese. And the babies look nothing like their grown ups. They are too yellow. They look like something else. I help geese cross roads. The massacre of an entire goose and their gooslings is too horrible to think. To think over and over again but now finally just only moderately over and over again. A little less.

The weight of grief…

It is heavy. For a little while it was light as air. It was listening to music for once again. I know I’m sort of fine when I can listen to music and sing. If I’m not fine I have to listen to myself. If I am I listen to Selena Gomez or t. Swift or Rammstien, or Enrique, or Celine. Anyone. My play list has every genre of music. If it’s good to me I will have it on there. Singing in the greenhouse like no one can hear me. If you have never sang in a greenhouse you are missing out. I’ve even been asked “Are you singing to the plants?” Yay, why?

It was lighter until it started to feel heavy. Not fine. It came out of nowhere. Actually I blame sawdust. I smelled sawdust. Not just any but from pieces of wood being cut for garden stakes in the building I was in. It made me cry. Not a lot just a little. Years ago I told myself this day was coming. That one day the smell of sawdust will bring me to tears. I was prepared? No. I was not. I walked in carefree and a little light and comfy to a building unknowing it would make me leave a little heavier.

I have bugs. Not me personally. Actually, before I start that’s not totally true, I was showering and apparently had a small spider either in my hair or on me. I looked down and she was floating away with her little legs kicking to the drain. I couldn’t handle it. I pulled her out by a leg and lay her out to dry. I checked three times on her body moving and wiggling on the side of the tub, I tried to dry her off, I blew lightly on her. Then she stopped. I cried. She died. She is gone. She probably has babies. She either died from drowning or from poisonous shampoo. It’s too soon to know. Hopefully there are no baby spiders in my hair. I went to properly flush her down the toilet and dropped her little body. Now I can’t find her. Now she is dead and missing.

Anyway, I have bugs in my greens house. Aphids. Big fat juicy aphids on my daisies. I do not like to kill bugs. I do not like them on my plants but I struggle to kill. (I keep hearing Dr. Seuss.) I do not like to kill even with toxic chemicals, especially. I can’t smash bugs. I can’t put them between my fingers and smear them into little flat juicy aphids full of my plant juices. I can’t flush them. I can’t run them over and I imagine I have millions unknowingly, oh, God!! I also can’t eat them!! Who eats bugs? Starving people. I am not convinced I would even then. Even covered in chocolate. Or in marinara sauce. I know I likely ingest bugs. This bothers me if I think too far. I am an avid camper. I know I have eaten them cooked over fires and mistakenly landing in my food. To then be cooked. Then eaten. Is there a word for people who eat bugs? Is it just carnivore? Likely. It needs its own word. There is a special word for this.

Stop. I have to kill these bugs. Daisies are sensitive to chemicals. In a large facility washing them off isn’t effective. I use systemic. I water with a chemical to get into the system of the plant to poison the aphids when they eat. To protect my daisies. Sometimes I let it go. But they are in the flower buds and distorting the flower. A Daisy is known for her flower. That’s it. They have to die. I am burdened with the weight of killing bugs.

I release stink bugs. They only stink if they are threatened so I make sure I’m not threatening. Then I pick them up and put them outside. They keep coming back. Likely because I’m not threatening enough. They are sort of fun to play with. If you put them on their flat backs they flip back over with their hind legs. I can only imagine what they are thinking. I am imagining it. I have one in my house now and sort of want to put her in my pocket to take her to work and show off her acrobatics to others. Then I can release her in my greenhouse where she can eat whatever she wants. Unless she eats my daisies. She will die if she eats daisies today. Assuming she is a she.

I was heavy. My shirt collar hurts. My toes hurt. I could barely lift my legs. My boots were too heavy. Burdened by the smell of sawdust. Someday I will smell sawdust and it will not bring me to tears. Just like once I thought someday I will smell sawdust and it will. I’m not at someday yet. Except I am. I want to the be at the next someday. But I’m not.

I am here. Today. Heavy from a loss so great I can’t handle my job. I can’t handle proper insect control. I need my aphids to live because my dad died. But they have to die. I needed that spider to be ok. But now she is missing. I needed the stink bug to enjoy her day and do flips on my table. I needed to mow. But his yard is full of tall grass from him not being here to mow and is full of bugs. Once it’s mowed it’s mowed by me and never him again. I wanted the grass to grow forever since the last time it was cut was by dad. I didn’t want to go into the garage today and smell sawdust again. Because he isn’t making it anymore. It is all just where he left it last. Everywhere I go.

I couldn’t breath. I felt too heavy to breath. I’m a small person. Tall but small. I felt full of heavy things. All my organs were heavy. I’m weighed down by my broken heart.

The days get harder. I am not a doctor or a nurse or a surgeon or a person who wears a mask. Except I am now. It’s not my job. Or it wasn’t. But now it is. Do I have more respect for careers that require them. No, I always had respect for these people. They kept me safe from things we didn’t know if they were there or not. My doctor didn’t think he had anything. He was showing that he cared enough of other humans who don’t know he knows that. He wasn’t protecting me from him. He was helping me feel like I am safe because of the fact no one knows if we know or not. We don’t know. We just don’t know if it helps to all wear them which is why we do. The uncertainty. It’s the effort. It’s kind.

I woke feeling like I had to justify why ai do. My therapist has spent years helping me feel less afraid of myself. I don’t feel afraid of myself. It is a simple act of kindness. For a while we have the opportunity to think differently. To protect the weak and vulnerable. To slow down. Breath with more thought. Practice slow controlled breathing.

Some do and some don’t. It isn’t supposed to feel like a personal choice. It isn’t supposed to be optional. It frustrated me when our business was called out for no one wearing them. This was just not true. Not just me but multiple people do. If they work outdoors of our facility they don’t until they have to interact. If it is slow and no one is there we water and tend to plants while we breath a little easier. But harder. A greenhouse as big as our retail greenhouse full of plants and people is hot especially with added radiant heat: especially adding a mask. It is hard to change the way we do things. It is hot to wear a mask just to water plants. It is hard to put it on properly to be around others. My mask is filthy. It looks like I’ve been in a garden. It has plant food on it. It’s the only thing I can think it is. It’s blue. My mask smells like brownies. Which makes no sense. It’s is hard to chat on the phone to a customer for proper watering and plant care muffled through a mask. We have wipe our phones down. Everything has to just be thought of. It is hard to manage situations based on situations.

It is an added weight for me. This uncertainty. I don’t vent to the world on social media pages. I am my own critic. I work through things without needing others to hear me. Actually it’s more that I don’t want to. I’m still afraid to. I want it to be that I do not do these things and it is confidence in myself but I really think it is fear. Only because I’m afraid of so much that it just has to be true.

I cried thinking that it is unfair I have to do so much alone. On my own. I’m supposed to say on my own. If you say alone you feel it. If you say on my own it sounds stronger and you feel less alone. But still alone. Same feeling just less of the one with new words to get to it, added strength to the alone.

I want someone to do half of everything for me. Or I did yesterday. I wanted married again. Only to someone who would actually do half of everything for me. I don’t know what this would feel like since I didn’t have this. I want a husband? Wanted.

I spent the day thinking I wanted a husband. I wanted one when I had one. No, needed one. Except I don’t. Mine I had consumed me. It’s easy to do. I can see that now. If I know too much I feel too much. I feel too much just by being in a room approximately 6 feet from a person or even a bug. This distance has always been my distance. Any closer and I will consume them like wildfire. Lose myself in the flames. Back to square one. Which is a foundation crumbled to the ground and even below ground. I would have to build it all over again. Because of someone else. So I keep my distance. Except from bugs.

I am fine on my own. Fine. That’s the word you say when you are anything but. How are you? Fine. I’m fine. Except I’m not. I’m heavy, alone, a bug killer, not married, can’t mow… I’m weighed by grief. I need lighter clothes. My boots are to heavy. But I’m also fine, because my dad died and he will never mow or make sawdust again so I’m allowed to feel not fine. Which is fine.