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Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Farm Journal - 2025
« Last post by sKePTiKal on June 28, 2025, 07:24:55 AM »Well, you've had longer silent spells on the board recently. So I wondered. I was also thinking about my own and the why's & wherefores of them. So, comparing notes sort of. Wondering about this life stage and what I want to make of it (and IF that's even worth "designing" - LOL).
B brings a chaotic mess - which is sometimes quite joyful - into my house. He's seen my limits though - it's not so much OCD as the chaos causes anxiety for me and I MUST act to stop that. Our main living space isn't large - think tiny house or one-room cabin (even though there's a lot more house around that area) so clutter is an ongoing tidal ebb & flow. I can tolerate that within reason - and occasionally "triumph" temporarily. LOLOL. For me, maintaining a low ratio of mess in the main space IS self-care. Something I practice for my own sanity. For B, it means he can easily see the last place he put something down - instead of having to look in 6 different places. And then forgetting what he was looking for - when he finds something else that "disappeared".
LOLOLOL.
We tried the only local Chinese take-out place yesterday, out of experimentation. It's not bad - but I was hoping for a little more "hot" in my Szechuan. Next order, I'll add a note. So while we're way out in the boonies, within 15-20 mins we have the local butcher/grocery which makes super burgers & Italian subs, a combo Mex-Italian sit-down restaurant that does pizza & subs & dinners to go, and now the Chinese restaurant to pick from. There is a standard "American Chain Restaurant" type place... but I think they're pricy for what they deliver. Oh, and a couple old-time diners around various nearby towns. B needs his liver & onions every so often. I need a good pastrami rueben... LOL.
It's as quiet a life as we're allowed (by other people's problems) to enjoy. Simple, no drama. Well, except the healthcare battle endures... and it's all just entropic, piddly BS. His over-sized reaction to it, is starting to mellow out a little. The last major blow - was his T blaming Vets for faking/overplaying the PTSD symptoms to get more money from the gov't. That one still stings him. (B doesn't even claim PTSD... so I'm guessing T needed to blow off steam & thought B was a "safe" person to do it with. They've worked together 30 years. Probably needs to retire or at least an extended sabbatical.)
We have a small local hospital that can handle med-flights into the "city over the mountain" 's major trauma center. My step-D is the liason for that regional coordination between all of the trauma centers & ERs. And there's an associated clinic here. So not bad for rural medicine.
We've not been enjoying any time in the "city over the mountain". It's WAAAAAY too much NoVa in traffic & rudeness these days and something dysfunctional has happened to it's art & music scene. Hol only goes there to shop the ethnic groceries and visit a handful of friends these days too. She hits B'more only for dentist appts & will sometimes schedule friend visits... but that's less often these days. We can get everything we "need" right here. And oftentimes, it's better quality (yeah, we pay for it) - local, clean meats, fresh produce in season, all the staples required to live here... it's only rarely we even see "the dark side" of society. Our bank branch was robbed a year or so ago. There have been a few rare murders.
I guess one can argue that insulating oneself from "life these days" is anti-social and therefore a "bad thing". But I consider it self-preservation in that I'm not getting pushed, pulled, attention-grabbed sixteen ways to Sunday all the time. I paid my dues in that respect over the years, and now just want to live each day peacefully. Anytime I need a "dose" of what's going on in the rest of the world, there's the internet. And I walk away from it a LOT more now. Plenty of work that's more gratifying around here! Making "pretty".
B brings a chaotic mess - which is sometimes quite joyful - into my house. He's seen my limits though - it's not so much OCD as the chaos causes anxiety for me and I MUST act to stop that. Our main living space isn't large - think tiny house or one-room cabin (even though there's a lot more house around that area) so clutter is an ongoing tidal ebb & flow. I can tolerate that within reason - and occasionally "triumph" temporarily. LOLOL. For me, maintaining a low ratio of mess in the main space IS self-care. Something I practice for my own sanity. For B, it means he can easily see the last place he put something down - instead of having to look in 6 different places. And then forgetting what he was looking for - when he finds something else that "disappeared".
LOLOLOL.
We tried the only local Chinese take-out place yesterday, out of experimentation. It's not bad - but I was hoping for a little more "hot" in my Szechuan. Next order, I'll add a note. So while we're way out in the boonies, within 15-20 mins we have the local butcher/grocery which makes super burgers & Italian subs, a combo Mex-Italian sit-down restaurant that does pizza & subs & dinners to go, and now the Chinese restaurant to pick from. There is a standard "American Chain Restaurant" type place... but I think they're pricy for what they deliver. Oh, and a couple old-time diners around various nearby towns. B needs his liver & onions every so often. I need a good pastrami rueben... LOL.
It's as quiet a life as we're allowed (by other people's problems) to enjoy. Simple, no drama. Well, except the healthcare battle endures... and it's all just entropic, piddly BS. His over-sized reaction to it, is starting to mellow out a little. The last major blow - was his T blaming Vets for faking/overplaying the PTSD symptoms to get more money from the gov't. That one still stings him. (B doesn't even claim PTSD... so I'm guessing T needed to blow off steam & thought B was a "safe" person to do it with. They've worked together 30 years. Probably needs to retire or at least an extended sabbatical.)
We have a small local hospital that can handle med-flights into the "city over the mountain" 's major trauma center. My step-D is the liason for that regional coordination between all of the trauma centers & ERs. And there's an associated clinic here. So not bad for rural medicine.
We've not been enjoying any time in the "city over the mountain". It's WAAAAAY too much NoVa in traffic & rudeness these days and something dysfunctional has happened to it's art & music scene. Hol only goes there to shop the ethnic groceries and visit a handful of friends these days too. She hits B'more only for dentist appts & will sometimes schedule friend visits... but that's less often these days. We can get everything we "need" right here. And oftentimes, it's better quality (yeah, we pay for it) - local, clean meats, fresh produce in season, all the staples required to live here... it's only rarely we even see "the dark side" of society. Our bank branch was robbed a year or so ago. There have been a few rare murders.
I guess one can argue that insulating oneself from "life these days" is anti-social and therefore a "bad thing". But I consider it self-preservation in that I'm not getting pushed, pulled, attention-grabbed sixteen ways to Sunday all the time. I paid my dues in that respect over the years, and now just want to live each day peacefully. Anytime I need a "dose" of what's going on in the rest of the world, there's the internet. And I walk away from it a LOT more now. Plenty of work that's more gratifying around here! Making "pretty".