Farm Doin's - 2020

[sKePTiKal]

<Rambling Blather Warning>

It's a good thing I figured out I could essentially "flip a switch" and not try to make myself miserable about B being beyond where we can communicate. Because this feeling (feelings?) is/are incredibly intense. I've been trying to figure out ways to manage that and still go about my day without being totally distracted & preoccupied. This is more intense than even when I first recognized the connection between us - when Hol said I was just like a lovestruck 14 yr old. LOLOLOL.

Go figure: I've got a lot more practice and experience managing negative emotions - but I've never been this so blissfully happy. It feels STRANGE. And he's not even communicating with me; not for a few more days yet. This is all coming from ME. And ironically, for most of my life, I believed that happy was a transitory state. Fleeting moments that one shouldn't attach oneself to - because they'd be gone in the space of hours or at most - a day. It's not imaginary or fantasy-based... I'll be doing something mundane like taking the trash out - and start giggling to myself, just because I feel so happy. Not even thinking about him. It's not conditional - ie, it's not a reaction to communication from him or his presence. There isn't any interaction whatsoever between us this week - altho I did dream about him a couple nights ago.

I can't even analyze it much; only so far as concluding that the feelings I've experienced previously when I thought I was "in love"... were apparitions of emotional programming/conditioning: this is how people are supposed to feel, act, think, etc. There were a lot transactional conditions in all 3 of my marriages; unspoken negotiations of I'll give you X, and in return, I'll receive Y and "put up with" Z. After the years A&B have talked - we've never even had one "relationship" conversation. We do talk about feelings; and how we feel with each other. We did address the practical aspects of our individual habits & quirks & how we like to do things.

We're both so ferociously independent that "needs" seem to not exist as separate things; we just WANT to be together because it feels happy to be together. The other's happiness is more important - and that's a two-way connection. We don't HAVE TO BE together, to still have the relationship we do. All the other stuff just kind of falls into place naturally with us. Even now - while I'm adjusting to this unfamiliar "frequency" of happy - I'm not making plans, checklists of expectations to be met, or a post-it of things we have to discuss.

I guess this "me".... is Amber too. She was there all this time under the layers & layers of muck, pain, defenses, risk averseness, starting overs, practical matters.... and all it took was for someone to look and see her hiding under all that. All that "other stuff" is still useful; a good experiential toolkit; it doesn't need to be purged or forgotten... as long as it doesn't get in the way or thinks it's not important anymore and tries to get attention by acting out.

Better late than never, I guess.

[Hopalong]

WOWSERS, Amber. I think this is some huge leaping. You are beginning to resemble a kangaroo.

this week's separation really turned dark on me. Almost a replay of losing Michael...

That is so stark and so clear. I'm glad you saw it. That the lover's temporary absence could feel almost (not quite) like DEATH, in the loss it triggered. You know this reaction is "too big" but you identified it honestly and full on, and that's why you could immediately, rationally, challenge the proportion. Good for you, girl.

...it persisted even after I woke up this morning... so I simply DECIDED...

I'm not going to do that. It's OK, he had to go away for work for a week. I'm truly FINE.

Yes, you are! Doesn't mean it's FUN to be missing him, but it isn't DANGEROUS.

It sounds as though you really had an epiphany about your own self and your own reactions, and it sounds like the kind that will keep on rippling good things, healing and hopeful realizations...on into the future.

I say seriously, congratulations. Whether it was decision or reason or a sudden moment where your mind was ready to click into balance between emotion and reason and health and vulnerability...all or some combo, you let this good change happen. You didn't block it or fear it or sabotage it.

That's awesome!

hugs
Hops

[lighter]

Amber:

Hear! Hear!

Here's to noticing emotions aren't real.  They have no power.  They're not good or bad, they just are, and one doesn't have to grab on or follow them down a rabbit hole. 

One may choose where attention is focused. 

I look forward to you and B focusing on every happy amazing thing in your lives, shared and individually, without projecting into the future or worrying about the past. 

Just.....

BE A&B.
And A.
And B.

And seek your joy. 

Right here,  and now,  WOOF.

Lighter

[cats paw]

Well said by CB.   I was going to say something very similar after reading your last couple of posts!

It's so wonderful to know those kinds of feelings have no age limit.

Cat

[sKePTiKal]

Hops I do think it's a combo of things - and TIMING, really - that it just clicked for me. Boo on the not getting anything done, though... LOL.  But I really can't. I'm in some strange state of suspended animation... waiting for Hol to be able to start moving (a couple more days; early next week) and Buck to get back to his regularly scheduled "timeline" for moving here.

I did get preps ready to build my wall of rock, though, yesterday.

Lighter... I sense that I'm flowing more WITH things these days, instead of trying to impose how I think things should go. And since that whole intuitive side of me has woken up... I'm definitely noticing things more often and in different ways than before.

Kitty - After Mike died (2015) it was a few years before I even thought about "looking" again. Tried the online dating stuff - and it just isn't my scene. And I'd known B for years before he came up last year to rescue my jeeps from my studied neglect... LOL. I moved in that time too; back "home" but in the mountains across the state line. So I knew I liked him as a friend; he'd been actively supporting me on some of those worst nights early on, during the freshest loss. But the sparks were undeniable and he was too much a gentleman and too shy to make the first move. LOLOL. I think I mighta scared myself a little in that process. ("What were you THINKING Amber?! Have you lost your mind??! You're not ready for this!!!!) Oh my***. But as it turns out we've had a chance to let the friendship deepen and shift... and yes, it's truly something I'm grateful for -- to find this kind of love again.

Seriously, I might consider writing a romance novel this winter. LOL. I just can't write dialogue worth a crap. Maybe I'll try Cormac McCarthy's style - no punctuation on the dialogue. There's an ulterior motive to this idea, since there's an open question of whether perhaps we were together in a past life (if you believe such things are possibe; I'm not sure). Would give me a chance to let imagination & intuition create setting... and maybe I'd get clues.

*** Once upon a time, back in ye olden times of beads & rock & roll & incense, I was most definitely an "empowered" young woman. That changed over the decades; mellowed; I'm seeing my feminity in new ways too. (Without giving up any independence, mind you).

[sKePTiKal]

And Buck is home.        

Everything went well. And now, for the catching up phase.... 

I'll be back; just don't know how long this is going to take. 

[Twoapenny]

That's great news, Skep, enjoy   Look forward to reading the next update xx

[sKePTiKal]

There are some parallel plots going on in the farm story right now. Different streams of activity... like different wet weather streams in a downpour - which we might get this week. Not the trop storm so much - but what the storm is going to run into; a weather feature coming out of the upper midwest/great lakes.

Hol has been working at the Hut; removing the wrong color of grout in her master bath shower so it can be regrouted. Heat gun and utility knife work - miserable but not physically difficult. She's just about done. Plumber has been busy connecting kitchen sink & bathroom stuff. Electrician worked Sat, too. This week looks to include moving her appliances down so the gas ones can be hooked up. Interior doors going up; trim getting finished; painting the few odds & ends left. Then, she's headed to B'more to help one of co-workers move. His wife has been going through chemo - and they are moving her and the little one first, as a virus precaution. Then the assembled crew - mostly people from the production crews - will dive in on the bigger stuff. The tv series that was postponed by the virus has been cancelled, so it's a good thing all those people have side jobs. Hol wasn't sure she was going to go back to work. The next weekend - my house will get emptied of her stuff.

Over the weekend, she invited out a friend & his wife that she hasn't seen in a long time. They live out of the city - but jumped at a chance to go somewhere for a change of scenery. He builds garden structures - ike greenhouses, solar systems, etc. And have a homesteader mentality. He and I hit it off and talked late into the darkness; I'm covered in mosquito bites... but we were trading his ideas & my long decades of being interested in this life. Years & years ago, I remember being on the first homestead - and telling Hol I could see her becoming the cliché farmwife with chickens, dogs & cats, & kids running around the yard. I smile to myself, seeing her make that transition - her way of course.

B had a very productive week on his training mission. One student reminded him, of him at that age. He spent a little more time with him - just as he did, with the guy who'd trained him. It was his first - and last - deep dive (100 ft or more) since his injury. And he got closure on that whole part of his life. Some of the diving gear got an appropriate "burial at sea". 17 to 65 is a pretty big chunk of someone's life. He called me a couple times over the weekend. Once when the dog, Seth (Hol's friend) & I got stung by yellow jackets.... LOL. I didn't see the nest when we walked around the deck. No major problems; B was just being protective. That can feel really new & strange to me; but I LIKE it. Sometimes I do remind him, I can take care of myself, though.

I didn't get TOO stuck in overthinking all these new feelings and the "knock you on your butt" intensity of them. I asked for, and got, the reassurance that I wasn't imagining how he feels about me. We are doing the trade, I described in the SHAME thread... so that our individual puzzle pieces of self are coming together to form a new picture. I had to transfer the one text he sent me, to my journal. So I flipped back, to the beginning marker - about my first weekend at the little cabin back in spring '16. Before I bought the farm. It was 6 months after Mike died.

The comparison is interesting. What happened as a result of that experience for me, was beginning a journey back into the whole world of Pre-Twiggy emotional intensity. All the stuff I had to "put away" to get all of my cognitive synapses firing in functional order after the trauma. Hops mentioned shame... I was shamed for how emotional I was as a result of all that trauma. I was expected - it was demanded of me - that I pull up my boots and keep on truckin' somehow. As if what had happened was just a minor insult. Those feelings were the full panorama of emotion, in living color. And it was ALL shutdown, in an attempt to keep my anger under wraps... because that emotion and it's intensity wasn't "comfortable" for other people around me. (Nevermind, it was a direct cry for HELP.) Funny I did meet other people in those early days who completely understood it... and started to help me figure it out. But the people I counted on the most just made things worse. Neighborhood people, teachers, my step-dad... they all helped...

and countless boyfriends and 3 husbands. LOL. I mentioned my stubborn persistence, in the other thread. LOLOL. I never stopped LOOKING for someone who could understand and accept that part of me. It would appear that B was on the same quest... and needed what I can give him too. A whole nother B is waking up too, in this process of working to be together. And communicating that between us... just blew the overthinking, doubts, and uncertainty right outta the water (why do I think I'm going to use that analogy a lot more??? LOLOL). This is real & it's for all the marbles this time. It's "what you see is what you get"... simple. Happy is now a new flavor in both our lives - and we're not clinging to any one particular moment of it... instead we're creating ways to manifest that as often as we can.

I feel kinda like I'm designing myself a new life role... and I think I know where I got the idea from; but of course, it needs to be tailored to me. And Buck.

And I'm going to weave a new balance between left-brain competence and right-brain emotion & processing. It's already starting... and some of it, I'm not even directing. That's OK too.

I just love it when a plan works out. LOLOLOLOLOL.

[lighter]

There are some parallel plots going on in the farm story right now. Different streams of activity... like different wet weather streams in a downpour - which we might get this week. Not the trop storm so much - but what the storm is going to run into; a weather feature coming out of the upper midwest/great lakes.  Thunder storm just rolled over us, Amber.  I do love the rain.

Hol has been working at the Hut; removing the wrong color of grout in her master bath shower so it can be regrouted. Heat gun and utility knife work - miserable but not physically difficult. She's just about done. Plumber has been busy connecting kitchen sink & bathroom stuff. Electrician worked Sat, too. This week looks to include moving her appliances down so the gas ones can be hooked up. Interior doors going up; trim getting finished; painting the few odds & ends left. Then, she's headed to B'more to help one of co-workers move. His wife has been going through chemo - and they are moving her and the little one first, as a virus precaution. Then the assembled crew - mostly people from the production crews - will dive in on the bigger stuff. The tv series that was postponed by the virus has been cancelled, so it's a good thing all those people have side jobs. Hol wasn't sure she was going to go back to work. The next weekend - my house will get emptied of her stuff.
You so often hit all the high points, IMO, and leave me feeling I have the big picture... and need nothing else from your posts to feel informed and caught up: )
 
Over the weekend, she invited out a friend & his wife that she hasn't seen in a long time. They live out of the city - but jumped at a chance to go somewhere for a change of scenery. He builds garden structures - ike greenhouses, solar systems, etc. And have a homesteader mentality. He and I hit it off and talked late into the darkness; I'm covered in mosquito bites... but we were trading his ideas & my long decades of being interested in this life. Years & years ago, I remember being on the first homestead - and telling Hol I could see her becoming the cliché farmwife with chickens, dogs & cats, & kids running around the yard. I smile to myself, seeing her make that transition - her way of course.
That warms my heart.  How kind of Hol to lend that hand.  I hope she stays safe.I hope being around a little one doesn't jerk her emotions around too hard for wanting her own.  Is she still talking about having a baby?

B had a very productive week on his training mission. One student reminded him, of him at that age. He spent a little more time with him - just as he did, with the guy who'd trained him. It was his first - and last - deep dive (100 ft or more) since his injury. And he got closure on that whole part of his life. Some of the diving gear got an appropriate "burial at sea". 17 to 65 is a pretty big chunk of someone's life. He called me a couple times over the weekend. Once when the dog, Seth (Hol's friend) & I got stung by yellow jackets.... LOL. I didn't see the nest when we walked around the deck. No major problems; B was just being protective. That can feel really new & strange to me; but I LIKE it. Sometimes I do remind him, I can take care of myself, though.
I so get that being able to take care of yourself, but also having a place where care and concern are welcome.  It's a delicate balance, IME.  I don't know why it sometimes brings up reactivity, but it does.  Well, I DO know, but it has nothing to do with your stuff,  thank God.

I didn't get TOO stuck in overthinking all these new feelings and the "knock you on your butt" intensity of them. I asked for, and got, the reassurance that I wasn't imagining how he feels about me. We are doing the trade, I described in the SHAME thread... so that our individual puzzle pieces of self are coming together to form a new picture. I had to transfer the one text he sent me, to my journal. So I flipped back, to the beginning marker - about my first weekend at the little cabin back in spring '16. Before I bought the farm. It was 6 months after Mike died.

The comparison is interesting. What happened as a result of that experience for me, was beginning a journey back into the whole world of Pre-Twiggy emotional intensity. All the stuff I had to "put away" to get all of my cognitive synapses firing in functional order after the trauma. Hops mentioned shame... I was shamed for how emotional I was as a result of all that trauma. I was expected - it was demanded of me - that I pull up my boots and keep on truckin' somehow. As if what had happened was just a minor insult. Those feelings were the full panorama of emotion, in living color.  I think I get that too.  The stoicism.... the need to get through and not feel weakened or weak or vulnerable or allowed to have normal human emotions while there's so much to be done.  Does that make sense to you? And it was ALL shutdown, in an attempt to keep my anger under wraps... because that emotion and it's intensity wasn't "comfortable" for other people around me. (Nevermind, it was a direct cry for HELP.)Familiar too. Funny I did meet other people in those early days who completely understood it... and started to help me figure it out. But the people I counted on the most just made things worse. Neighborhood people, teachers, my step-dad... they all helped...

and countless boyfriends and 3 husbands. LOL. I mentioned my stubborn persistence, in the other thread. LOLOL. I never stopped LOOKING for someone who could understand and accept that part of me. It would appear that B was on the same quest... and needed what I can give him too. A whole nother B is waking up too, in this process of working to be together. And communicating that between us... just blew the overthinking, doubts, and uncertainty right outta the water (why do I think I'm going to use that analogy a lot more??? LOLOL). This is real & it's for all the marbles this time. It's "what you see is what you get"... simple. Happy is now a new flavor in both our lives - and we're not clinging to any one particular moment of it... instead we're creating ways to manifest that as often as we can.  IME, it's a rare and cherished thing to be loved, even when speaking a less than popular truth.  It's a rare thing to be with people who respect your views, even though they don't agree, or don't get what they want in the moment.  It feels like a good marker in relationship.  Does this person treat me with respect and kindness, even when receiving sometimes painful information?  Can they hear it?  Can they process and discuss it, and accept it, without trying to change it?

I feel kinda like I'm designing myself a new life role... and I think I know where I got the idea from; but of course, it needs to be tailored to me. And Buck.  Yup.

And I'm going to weave a new balance between left-brain competence and right-brain emotion & processing. It's already starting... and some of it, I'm not even directing. That's OK too.

I just love it when a plan works out. LOLOLOLOLOL.

The difficulties and challenges will lead to more strength and understanding, IME. Sometimes disagreement and discomfort are messengers....
something has to change. 

Nothing has to be broken.  A tweak is just a tweak and all relationships are navigated and morphing, as a matter of healthy course, IME.  You're surin'real good, ((Amber.))

Lighter

[sKePTiKal]

Hol still enjoys other people's little ones immensely. Yes, I think she'd still like to be pregnant and carry to term. She is more than wary about miscarrying again - which is understandable. But she tried some fertility Rx's (stuff for age; at 42 she has some peri-menopausal symptoms - that was about the age I started that mess too) and has since forsaken them. Like most things that affect our basic hormonal balance - she didn't like the effects and she also wasn't pregnant. She's not going to pursue things like that any further.

[Hopalong]

Welcome home, Buck!!!!!

I'm very happy for you both, Amber.

And especially glad for you that you see the over-thinking for the impediment it is, and are working not to get stuck there. Bravo. Not easy to undo long habits but nothing like falling in love to upend a lot of autopilot stuff.

It sounds to me as though you both have such positive impacts on each other, overall. And what a relief that B is now aiming for a safe, secure military retirement (if I remember the bureaucratic weirdness right).

Hol moving out? Oh that glorious day. No disrespect to her and I hope she'll be very self-sufficient and healthy in her own nest, which you have beyond-generously made possible.

Heading to Baltimore as the pandemic surges again? Dunno about THAT....

hugs
Hops

[sKePTiKal]

It's beyond interesting - and explanation - to my usual over-analyzed degree Hops. The over-thinking was a response to emotional fear (this is too good to be true). And yet - all the intuitive/emotional side of me kept saying: he means what he says; you aren't imagining this or wishing it into being in your mind; it's not a fantasy/delusion... based on old dependency issues.

The way out was simply asking if he meant what I thought he said; and getting that answer.

It's funny, Hol moving out and into the hut. She's not far from the house; and I'm sure I'm going to see her frequently and just hang out or work together. And she's a professional texter. LOLOL. IF she gets a signal down there. TBD for the moment. For both of us, it's another "new" experience. We're both happy that we've made sharing a house work for so long with only a couple major blowups (we each have our own records) along the way. I've got a little more legal stuff to do - a land lease agreement - until she inherits the whole kit & kaboodle. I will probably make some provision for B... but it's way too soon to think about that right now and he might have his own druthers on that topic.

For right now -- the future is still the future, and until all the major "planners" are here... we're simply going to finish what's been started and get ready for winter. That starts in August, on the farm, ya know. She and I haven't even had one of our usual daydreaming, what-if pow-wows for a while.  And unless she decides to travel this winter - situationally dependent of course - I think we're all going to be hunkered down and cozy for the winter.

[lighter]

Amber:

Have you decided what provisions, if any, you'll make for grandsons and other dd?

You know I don't expect you to answer that if you aren't comfortable doing so.

Lighter

[sKePTiKal]

All that legal stuff got wrapped up last year. Only have one more business "action item" to take care of and the land lease for the Hut... and I'm done. It's just insurance. Yes, everyone is accounted for in those documents. I got QUITE the education into complexity of legal issues and combined - not necessarily friendly - families when my Dad died...

As it stands - B was already in the picture a LITTLE, when I organized all of that and the lawyer explained some options that made sense in case things got more committed. B already knows all this. It was one of our first "serious" discussions. If I had inherited before I married Mike - I have a feeling I would've seen some things about him sooner. Like his addiction to flashy, egoistic, status symbol stuff. Even without direct confrontations, it still became an issue. I think we did OK with it - but then, he didn't see things the same way I did and pressed his influence on me. To keep him "happy" - even tho there simply isn't enough material things in the world to create "happy".

Wills & estates are always updated when there is a substantial change in someone's life. Beneficiaries on certain bank accounts even. This is the second time I went through the trust process and all that. POAs. It's because what I set up in NC, wasn't going to fly in WV - the bank was the trustee and they aren't even licensed in this state. Things would've been even more complex. There are even more things that can happen... should I choose to go that route... to solidify Hol's situation some.

I didn't know I was going to inherit anything. I had to scramble to learn about all this stuff; I'd just gone through my first mortgage process a few years before that. In two years, I basically self-didacted into an MBA level understanding. But I also found that the people who were in charge of helping settle my Dad's estate welcomed questions when you listened to the answers. I picked their brains pretty thoroughly. Granted, I'm unconventional (these days) in my beliefs and understanding. My business background was VERY old-fashioned and based on the simplest principles. But I've also brought some compassion into the picture too. Some different ideas about how to correct the greed and exploitation that's rampant - especially in big business - and make that work for everyone. After all - I was the one exploited the times I worked within the "system". I knew what needed to be different. I really think that's made our business stronger and able to make it through these rough times. And more & worse, I fear, is on the way... so I need to put on my thinking cap/mystic visionary cape and dig for some more ideas to add to the mix.

And I'm doing all this with Hol watching, absorbing, objecting, proposing, and asking her questions... so the transition when it comes, SHOULD be easier for her. She should be able to just focus on making the decisions - without having to do all the research into what the decision actually consists of, where the traps are, and how to look forward to consequences that don't show up for years.... as well as thinking fast on your feet, when the unexpected stuff shows up. As it always does.

[Hopalong]

Oh lord, I'm so glad I'm not responsible for a huge complex of decision making and enterprise running the way you are, Amber. But reading all that reminds me that I've been making my 1100 square foot house and small personal goals into MOUNTAINS while you're actually carving out a complex and sustaining world on one.

I'm awed.

You also remind me that I need to update my will, etc. I actually added M to my health care POA and want to update that pronto.

I just have the law firm as my executor. Wish I had an individual I could trust with all that to help out D one day, but I don't. I had put in some restrictions for her because of her illness (one symptom is impulsive spending) but feel as though I should take another look at those. I want to ease her future, not make it harder.

And sorry for the hijack--I wanted to say how much I admire all you accomplish. It's mind boggling to me. Because you DO internal growing and working with just as much intensity as all the earth-moving, house-building stuff. It's astonishing.

hugs
Hops