i'm fine. no, really.

thank-you for the lovely and inspiring comments from all of you who posted here and emailed privately after last night’s post. it has made my morning a lot better to know when i do reach the edge, at least some people aren’t trying to push me off!

there are moments in this mess in which i feel very small and powerless – where i have to recognize the essential unchangeability of what has been started and the betrayls and lies that have been told. there are looming trials and decisions to be made, and more discovery which will peel away layer after layer of who we thought we were. how can this process not tear at us? this is the new phase to which we must adjust ourselves – each month different than the last. here we are february, now come the documents.

of course, the ongoing battle to sleep has not helped my perspective one iota – though last night i did manage to sleep seven hours with only one interruption – which is a record in the past month. i can hardly wait to see my naturopath this week and get some help with this problem (beyond the gravol i have been taking to help incur drowsiness).

i spent the weekend in victoria, visiting my parents for two nights and a lover for one (i think that ratio should probably be switched, but it was my birthday visit so family won out) . all in all the visit went fine, though i find it difficult to reconcile the tension between my parents (ongoing since i was very young), and the toll it seems to take on both of them. i mostly don’t engage with it anymore, though i did find myself at one point telling my father to lay off.

the overnight with my friend was a great way to end the weekend, but i suspect was also my undoing in terms of coming home a bit depressed as i realized in the morning how much i didn’t feel like “going back to my own life”. sitting there in greg’s flat, drinking good coffee on monday morning, the idea of my own life just seemed overwhelmingly sad to me, as if i had actually left reality to spend the night elsewhere. obviously i am identifying the difficult things with my life and the good things as not belonging to me – and that can’t be healthy!

in any case, i came back from victoria with a bunch of fabric that my mother bought and i promised to turn into quilted placemats and napkins (anyone out there have a serger?), and also some more fabric for another quilt project (i have about 3 ideas on the go at the moment, none of which i have started workin on) – so things to occupy my hands and mind when i feel like i can’t write anymore. i also returned with about 20 novels from my mother’s bookshelf (she was purging) which have made my too-read pile a bit unwieldy.

so yes, i am able to still create, to read, to cook good food, to enjoy a pint or two, to spend time with friends and lovers, to dream about a future in which there is a child, to hold and touch and laugh and play — to have my life, to make mistakes, and to find new ways to go forward. lucky? yes. i do know it. and it’s going to be okay.