New direction?

[WRITE]

Although people are urging me not to make any big decisions or to jump from one thing to another I am really feeling the need to right now.

I am so fed up, I really want to move on and go into a ne phase of my life.

I opened my daily prayer book and the reading was about slowing down and waiting patiently

No idea what that means....patience? Never heard of it.

Maybe I should buy a house.

Should I buy a house?

That's the other thing, can't make a decision to save my life right now.

[CB123]

Write,

I've had that kind of itchy feeling that I just need to DO something.  Hasnt usually ended well, but there you are.

Why does buying a house appeal to you?   Does the permanency appeal to you?

Love
CB

[WRITE]

Does the permanency appeal to you?

no, I was hoping it would cure my itchy feet. My urge is to run, to travel, to throw myself into something totally different....

What did you do which hasn't ended well?

Has impetuousness ever ended well?

[mudpuppy]

Buying a house in a falling market is a less than optimal financial decision.
I would guess the market has a good year or more before prices settle out.
If you have a dog, maybe you could buy him a house instead. Even if you don't its probably better to buy a doghouse than buying yourself one right now.

mud

[Certain Hope]

Dear Write,

I'm guessing that your question - "what is patience?" - was a rhetorical one...
nonetheless, I must say that your patience is what's being tested right now.
This testing is the only method which allows for growth, imo. It doesn't come naturally... at least not to some of us.

I believe that you are ever so patient in your dealings with others...
and I pray that you will apply that same patience to your itchy feet.
Like a skeeter bite which only itches more once scratched... hmm... maybe wear some socks on your hands for a day or two? 

My practical response here is to agree with Mud... but I'd still consider those socks.

With love,
Hope

[WRITE]

You think so Mud? I am in Houston, I thought the housing market was pretty good to buy here right now, especially for an older smaller property. Everyone here seems to want big and brand new.

Have to watch where to buy though, Houston floods badly.

( have y'all seen the flooding in England btw )

I must say that your patience is what's being tested right now.
This testing is the only method which allows for growth, imo. It doesn't come naturally... at least not to some of us.

I had so many years where waiting was like water torture, the slow drip of my life seeping away waiting for other people, at least now i have no one to wait for.

wear some socks on your hands for a day or two?

Thanks! I do wear socks in bed, on my feet though. Part of my self-care routine, now I don't get those sore bleeding crasked heels like other summers.

What is all this self-care for though?

It still feels like I am missing something, missing the point, missing the boat, missing out, gone missing....wow there are so many phrases with missing in.

Missing means lacking too doesn't it.

[mudpuppy]

Forgot you're in Houston. It's bouyed by oil prices, plus did not really see as big a run up as the coasts. If oil stays up Houston may avoid any serious declines. Its rated one of the least likely areas to see any significant price declines.
If oil goes bust which does not appear likely any time soon, all bets are off just as they were in the eighties and late nineties.

mud

[WRITE]

it's one of the best things about Houston, there's a huge property choice and diversity.

However who knows what will happen with oil, there seems to be a huge political commitment to keeping the industry dominant and strong even when it destabilises ecology or societies?

There's a lot of industry here Mud, it's a huge busy city, but its booms and busts seem independent of the rest of the country. There's a huge immigrant population bouys the economy too, especially the lower-paid jobs.

I can't imagine staying here all my life, but not sure where to go next either.

Somewhere pretty. With hills. Mountains. And four distinct seasons.

[Certain Hope]

Dear Write,

When my daughter was very small, with chicken-pox, I had her sleep with little socks on her hands, so as not to scratch at the
itchies while sleeping.
That was the picture I had in mind about this itch...
 because I think that there are parts which continue to sleep... after all the times with N's and the N'ish...
and maybe a part of this self-care is to recognize the "inner" child's desire to scratch an itch which could leave behind
a permanent scar.
As far as drips...
many, I think, would describe my life now as a slow drip... because I'm still waiting, Write.
But I'm not waiting for my childrens' father to convince me that he'll never sexually molest another child.
And I'm not waiting for NPD-ex to improve his behaviour just enough so that it's tolerable... only to cycle back into
monster-mode and threaten to take my life.
And I'm not waiting for my children to do something extraordinary so that my life can be filled by their accomplishments.
And I'm not waiting for my husband to stop leaving his socks on the bedroom floor.
And I'm really not waiting for my pony-dog to stop dragging me around the fields like a rag doll!
 

Oh, there are so many, many things that I'm no longer waiting for.

But I am learning to wait on the Lord... and that's proving to be the biggest challenge to date...
Just to be still and know that He is God... and I am not.
Waiting and allowing Jesus to grow me up into His image... waiting - because I cannot will myself there by practicing religion.
After years of that, off and on, here and there, in and out... one day I came to the end of myself and called upon the Name of the Lord...
and there He was, right where He'd always been, waiting for me.

With all that is in me, I know that I would not want to have missed a single bit of the mess which has come along the way, if that's what it took to bring me to the point of knowing Jesus.
I don't know why I didn't "get it" before... but I didn't - not until I admitted to myself
that there was nothing I could do,
nothing I could quit doing, absolutely nothing - to make myself right.
Only then was I willing to let Him make me right, from the inside out.

All I can say is... Jesus is well worth the wait!

With love,
Hope

[Ami]

Thank you for that,Hope                    Love  Ami

[WRITE]

Jesus is well worth the wait!

I think a lot of what is wrong with me right now is I have been trying to follow Jesus' teachings and it's been too hard.

I wish I could just go to the local church and collect the money and sing the songs and ignore the sexism or anything unpleasant but I can't.
So I'm cast adrift again.

I wanted so much to settle somewhere, to rest awhile, if you know what I mean.

Thanks though CH, I know you'll keep me in your prayers.

Are you feeling better Ami?

[lighter]

Hey Write:

My experience is.... it takes about a year of looking to find a house, if you're seriously looking. 

You can kick tires and educate yourself, decide how seriouse you are on the house hunting journey.

I spend too much time worrying about making decisions, making the wrong decisions...... I do better if I just get started and work on gaining information.  Lot's of things to think about with a house. 

[Hopalong]

Hey Write,
I remember being always obsessed with place.
It's had good effects, and bad ones.

Sometimes in my life my obsession with place, owning a home,
would replace obsession with finding a mate. It was like
declaring, I'm going to be my own mate!

I have taken enormous joy in tiny garden plots, painting
a kitchen.

It could be a wonderful place to put your energies.

But do think it through, try to assess whether it's filling a
sense of emptiness that's about not falling in love with yourself.

love
Hops

[axa]

Write,

I could not bear the sense of waiting when I was with XN, taking control of my own life has shifted that boredom with waiting.  In some ways I have achieved a lot over the past seven months but I have never been so still in all my life.  I withdrew in many ways from the world and felt the boredom I have been avoiding all my life.  Well, not the boredom, but what was beneath it, the loneliness, fear etc. 

I think that having been with Ns we (hope its ok to use we) have an addiction to excitement.  I really recognise this in myself, set down in my childhood of instability and alcoholic abuse.  I have tried to deny the addiction to excitement, live quietly just to prove that I AM NOT ADDICTED TO EXCITEMENT oh, every which way.  The movement I have made has happened by owning all the shadow parts of me.  I think until I go to my grave I will have a desire for excitement and adventure but rather than meet this part of me in abusive relationships I have decided to set up healthy adventure and excitement and challenges for myself.  These are challenges where I grow and are safe for me emotionally.........my trip to India, the half marathon, leaving my home to do a Masters.  I was very attached to my home and the area I live in but not anymore, its strange but the more I become attached to myself in a healthy way the less I am attached to the external........ does that make sense.

So what I am saying I guess is you want SOMETHING TO HAPPEN........ I so know this feeling.  So what can you make happen that is safe for you.  I really like the idea of an adventure into the hills etc........... would love to do those things.

Making a list really focused me and also did not allow me to make little of what I achieved.  I have been looking at that list for seven months and most of it has been accomplished and you know what WRITE I pat myself on the back(with great difficulty physically) each time I see it.  So come on, how about posting a list of healthy adventures for Write.

xxxxxxx

Axa

[motheroffour]

You sound like you need a stick of dynamite!   Something to break the stagnation and get things moving again.  Time to get creative perhaps and find something.  Your spirit will tell you what!

--mof4