I’m not sad, just restless.
We almost lost Killer a few weeks ago. His poor teeth were just one abscess after another and then we woke up one morning and is neck looked like a grapefruit had taken up residence. A couple of precarious surgeries later and he is leaping and bounding all over the house, demanding pureed food, and gumming everything in sight.
The attorney we hired to deal with the estate seems competent but her style leaves a lot to be desired. She thinks out loud, she repeats herself, and she doesn’t listen closely which means we end up repeating our info several times…all while paying $375 an hour for her expertise. She better deliver a stellar performance because she’s on borrowed time with me. I don’t expect perfection, but when JD has to remind this attorney of her Mom’s name multiple times in the same conversation I feel a seething rage that I cannot fully describe.
We’ve been making headway in the house but it’s a very slow process. I think we’ve made 3 trips to donation with full carloads of bagged clothing, boxes of decorative items, and random bric-a-brac. Every week we roll the industrial-sized trash and recycling cans to the road and they are always packed to the brim with papers, cardboard, plastic butter dishes, and what-not. There are days where I feel really motivated and I will fill literally 5 garbage bags of old bathroom supplies, half-empty lotions, expired condiments, and plastic shopping bags but there’s just SO MUCH OF IT.
I ventured into the attic last week and discovered a mountain of…well…EVERYTHING. Boxes of old clothes, vintage suitcases, extra furniture, and hanging lawn bags full of fake greenery and decorative valances. There also seems to be a small plateau of Christmas boxes, probably 30 or so, and endless banker’s boxes of financial paperwork going all the way back to 1972.
When I’m not going through something or cleaning something or cooking something, I am still putting in my 45+ hours a week working on my laptop for my steady. I’ve been swimming in the soaker tub at least 4 nights a week and there’s been a fair amount of witching out and getting creative with little projects here and there.
And studying. Always studying.
Because my brain demands information almost 24 hours a day.
I meet with a new therapist on Wednesday. Maybe I’ll tell her about my recent encounter with an ex-friend from well over 15 years ago on a mutual friend’s Facebook. I literally have not seen or spoken to this woman since about 2006 but there she was, take a passive-aggressive swipe at who she insists I am on a mutual friend’s page. I read what she wrote and stopped myself from replying with, “Bitch, I haven’t thought of you in 15 years and you don’t fucking know me anymore so why are you riding my jock, you raggedy piece of garbage???”
But I didn’t. I blocked her and moved on. Because that’s who I am today. At one time, I would have given her my energy but I’ve done enough work to know that her misery is not my responsibility.
Speaking of ex friends, let me just say this: When a friendship first ends, there might be the initial sting of pain and grief but just sit with it and process it because you might look up one day and be like “THANK GODDESS I DON’T HAVE THAT TOXIC ASSHOLE IN MY LIFE ANYMORE.” I’ve had the occasion of witnessing another ex-friend over the time from when our friendship dissolved up until now and her behavior is so clear it’s not even funny. All the toxicity, victim-y shame behavior, and self-focused “my feelings are the only feelings that matter” stuff is all energy that I don’t miss on any level. I feel no animosity toward either of these people…just plain gratitude for having a life that is free of their behavior, expectations, abusive bullshit, and toxicity.
I’m mentally cleaning house in a lot of ways and it feels good. This pandemic is exhausting on a lot of levels but I do see the bright spots where I get to spent lots of time with JD, do projects, sleep in, try new things, and solidify the relationships that are most important to me.
For that, I offer a curtsey and a kiss.
<3