June Looms and I'm Making Plans

I was just reading back over previous posts for the last three months.  Quite a lot of water under my personal bridge, lots of plans made and goals met.  Now it's the cusp of a new month and time to look at what goals I'd like to accomplish in June, as well as how I've progressed with the past month's goals.

First let's start with May.  The next series on the blog is begun, though it's a little behind at the moment.  I've started an article for that series but got side-tracked by little things like attending a meeting (that was cancelled) and turned into coffee with our friends, then a long weekend and leaving for our retreat.

We made the retreat trip this week.  We chose to return to St. Augustine and we are so glad we did.  It's just a place that feels like home to us and we've vowed we'll just plan to go back there and stop forcing ourselves to go other places, lol!  We just relax immediately in that area because we know it well, we're familiar enough with the town to find what we need and just unfamiliar enough to still be surprised by it.  The retreat itself was cathartic.  I didn't really spend lots of time in Bible study this time.  I spent lots of time with my nose in a book, a book I could barely stand to put down.  Peony in Love   by Lisa Lee.  The author's work is very mystic and deep and absorbing.  Loved it.  I plan to send it on to my oldest daughter, who I am sure, will love it as much as I did.

My adventure to the mall was a huge HUGE disappointment.  Turned out the mall was basically empty.  sigh.  Well I went, I saw, and while I might not have conquered at least I kept my word to myself. 

The new series on the blog opened up quite accidentally when my young friend sent a panicked email regarding running a household on a budget and with only one income.  She's always been employed and while she may have some work to do from home, the majority of the financial burden will be her husband's.  "How do I keep house and make a home?"  she wailed...And so Homemaking 101 was born as the new series.

I went to the financial source of the household and laid out my desire for a pretty yard...I probably couldn't have chosen a worse Spring to start this project, but you start where you are.  It's been very very dry, as in high alert for wild fires sort of dry and no grass to mow sort of dry.  Thankfully no expensive plantings have been done.  John suggested I hire help, namely our youngest son.  When I approached youngest he said he'd happily come once a week for the cost of a homemade meal and gasoline money down.  Thankfully his dad said I could pay him a wee bit more than that.  We've trimmed trees, spread some mulch, done some minor planting, dug up loads of things that are mostly being discarded and that's just three weeks worth of work.

My back deck project is coming along okay.  I pulled a glider out of hiding that had been sadly neglected and ignored and discovered that the 'broke' part was a missing bolt and nut.  Ok!  That means I have seating for the cost of a can of spray paint (or two) and the time it will take to dig out a nut and bolt from the jar where we keep them.  I have pillow covers made and just need inserts to go in them.  This week I hope to tackle the painting of the furniture and planning how to place it all so that it makes sense and looks nice.

My guest bedroom project is in progress.  I have materials to fashion curtains and an idea for a cute arrangement on the wall and a color scheme in mind (cottage style).

I managed a new look for the master bedroom and on a dime at that.  I am well pleased, have plenty more fabric to do a bit more work with.

I at least started the clean up of the living room clutter but haven't finished it as of yet.

I stuck hard to a lowered grocery budget last month and did very well, managing both stocking up and lowering that bottom line.  I was pleased as punch over that, too.  Chance has continued to work extra shifts twice a month which has meant a nice cushion for us and we've done well with savings and doing repairs without using any savings at all (or very rarely).  That's been a nice thing and allows for a sense of security.

So that was last month....What's ahead for June?

I want to finish the started projects (many, oh so many, lol).  Get guest room curtains made and paint the side table and look for something to make a headboard from.  I have an idea that will be cheap enough and should look more than nice.  Just a matter of getting all the stuff together to do it.

Put the top coat of paint on the vanity in the guest bath.  It was primed months ago.  I'm ashamed, really I am.

Make more shams and valances for master bedroom.

Put more paint on the front door.  It's 100F outside for heavens' sake, surely it will dry in record time?

Plants for front porch, mostly bloomers and toss the plants that are well past prime.  And two pretty pots of plants for either side of the doorsteps there.

Paint deck furniture.  Get deck arranged.  (Planters there are looking pretty good.  I might add one or two more pots of plants but if not we'll get by with what we have).

Chance is actually thinking he might not work extra shifts this coming month, or just one at most.  Suits me.  I've been a Sunday widow since January.  To that end, I want to be careful with our spending.  We should have a little extra cash here and there due to that third pay period this month which works out over a six week period where we have a bill that we might not have to pay or can spread out a little longer to pay.  I want to be sure we have that extra to offset his not working OT so he doesn't feel he must work extra all the time.

I have a list of new projects I'd like to start but I think it best if I finish the ones I've got underway first.  I feel I accomplished a great deal this past month and heaven knows I was B-U-S-Y, all month long.  Seemed like the last two weeks before our retreat I just couldn't stop going and I was weary beyond words when I'd quit each night.

One area I do want to touch upon this month is figuring out a way/time/place to have more God in my life. I have been reading my daily Bible, but it's been more just reading and hurrying through at that.  I want to spend a little time each day in study, prayer and praise, not just rush through or pray by rote.  I've plenty of study materials here on hand.  I need to just choose one and DO it.

If indeed John is home a bit more I'd like to have a date or two with him on his two off weeks.  I thought we might invite friends over for dinner and grill out, or perhaps go off to visit that museum he so wanted to see last June over at Ft. Benning.

Kate's to come home sometime this next month.  I hope it is a good visit for her, as the last one was.  She's had quite a struggle this year and I'd like to think she can relax and be young and have fun a bit here.

For myself, I plan to lighten up.  I have tended to hide a lot of my grief over situations I can't change and have no control over.  Chance and I had a long long talk one night and I realized that letting myself talk it out now and then  isn't complaining or whining or being a victim.  It's just letting go of things that hurt and moving on. 

And so we sail into June...

P.O.ed

I need to write something, out loud so to speak, in a public (sort of) place.  I have had the most awful time of late controlling my temper.  I haven't let anyone else know how angry I am.  I don't show it much.  You'd have to know me very very well to even see that I was a little bit angry.  No, no one would likely know it, but I do. I learned a long long time ago how to smother anger, how to step aside from hurt and rejection and keep on going.  Here of late, things keep coming up, bubbling up to the surface in a viscous sort of brew that is thick and soupy and refuses to succumb to lowered heat, to a good stirring.  Boiling away under the surface all the time these days. 

I stew.  I sulk.  I rage when no one is around, but only within, never out loud.  I say everything is fine when it isn't.  I weep.  I find myself at the most inopportune times feeling as though I'd like to snap: break things and beat something to a pulp and scream and be hateful to someone, anyone.  When that urge passes, I am covered in a dark cloud of depression that comes and goes, and comes and goes, much like clouds in a Spring sky.

Gracious!  You might well ask what on earth has me so upset?  What little thing or big has happened in my life of late to wreak such havoc in my emotional equilibrium? WHO caused such angst and anger?

I could point a finger at this person and that and the next one and two more besides, but mostly, I am angry at one person.  Me.  Myself. 

In the last post I shared a dream I'd had, where I refused to keep someone's junk in my home any longer.  That dream is the direct result of someone close who continually dumps her rage and grief and anger in my lap and then refuses to hear my own protests against such treatment.  I was so proud of myself after that dream.  Following hard on the heels of the dream, I  listened to a program, caught just the last five minutes really, about unforgiveness.  How repetitive dreams might well be about unforgiveness....And then the man said something about doors needing to be opened instead of locked shut....

This is a repetitive dream I've had for years upon years now.  I'm standing at a door or window, afraid while someone or something rages outside and I am desperately trying to lock out the thing I fear, even though I can see how inadequate a barrier I have, such as a window in the midst of a screened wall or a door in the middle of an open area.  Still I am busily working away at that lock, shoving that door/window shut with all my might and struggling to keep that rage outside at bay.

Maybe it was just the right time, the right words in the right season, but after hearing that program I asked God, "What would happen if I opened that door/window in my dream?  What if I stopped shutting things out and stopped the fear and the struggle?"

Well.  Apparently I'll bump hard against my anger over a variety of things in a million little moments and I'll have to face the hurt, the fear, the rage, the fear of rejection and the whatever is attached to that THING that is lurking outside that flimsy barricade.  That flimsy barricade turns out to be the facade I put up pretending I'm not mad, I'm not hurt, I'm not walking wounded through the world.

For the first week, I was in such physical pain it was unreal.  I'd be sitting here writing or reading and suddenly I'd be nearly bent double in agony, my skin crawling with an ache that seemed to run along veins and nerve endings.  It was an anxiety attack of a sort I'd not experienced in years.  To read of anyone's pain, to hear of a hurt someone suffered or I imagined they were feeling, was enough to trigger this pain of my own.  I was exhausted all of the time.  I couldn't get enough sleep. And then last week along about Tuesday I began to spout and spew and weep over this and that, things that are inconsequential.  Or so I thought, until my anger came raging up and out, growing and growing and rolling over the edges. 

A forgotten task I'd requested be done caused one such episode. I saw it suddenly as disrespect, a lack of caring, an attitude of inattentiveness.   A passive aggressive act of anger towards me. A  drive along a country road awoke anger over another hurt.  A broken appliance, a prayer I didn't care for the wording of, a moment of fear spied in someone I love, whining...anger just wouldn't be held at bay any longer. 

And grief.  Grief spewed up too, like so much acid reflux.  Anger is a natural part of grief did you know that?  I must be at the primo stage of grief then.  Grief over my lack of contact with my oldest girl, with my inability to see my grandchildren, at losing Granny in segments through Alzheimer's, at Mama's aging and idiosyncrasies, at my own aging, over things I'll never have the opportunity to rectify because they weren't second chance sorts of things. 

Then self loathing for allowing others to hurt me in ways I oughtn't to have been vulnerable to, for accepting bad treatment as 'good enough' because I felt I didn't deserve better, nor ask for it either; for the sometimes unintentional wallowing in sin I do in my thinking and the sharp brunt hurt of realizing I sometimes intentionally sin; for the many opportunities I let slip rather than dare to stand up and be brave and confrontational.

And depression.  I've read many times that anger is depression turned inward.  I sat here yesterday wondering if I should seek counseling once more, if we could possibly afford mental health clinic since I have no health insurance, or perhaps increase the St. John's Wort?  Because in the past two weeks I've felt more depression than I've felt in many many years.

All of this: anxiety, anger, self-loathing, depression has been shut away.  Not discussed with anyone.  Journaled about only partially because I wouldn't even be fully truthful in my journal about the extent of my loss of peace and equilibrium.  I've not even told my husband...nor God, though He surely knows all about it.  He sees it all and understands it and is no doubt there directing me through this time, but I've not talked to Him about it.  I've not turned to Him for solace or help or understanding.

I'm not keeping it buckled down, caged up or shoved away behind an inadequate facade door anymore. The door is wide open. This is what's inside.

It's time to open up.  No need to reveal the ways in which I was hurt (rightly or wrongly), for that would only cause a disturbance in lives that are frankly going blissfully along thinking all is well in their world, but certainly time to say I am Pissed.  P.O.ed.  Angry.  Spitting mad.  A towering inferno.  At melting point.  Livid.  Mad!  I'm tired of stifling anger.  I'm tired of denying my own feelings and keeping them tamped down nice and neat.  I'm tired of accepting barely good enough when I deserve so much more.  I'm tired of grieving quietly alone because others are uncomfortable, embarrassed, inconvenienced or simply don't know what to do with my pain.  Get over it.  I'm hurting.  I need to vent about it.  I need to TELL someone that right here is a big OW!  I bloody well hurt.

So this evening, as I stood at the kitchen sink washing dishes (oh great oracle for thinking that sink!), I thought about this post and what I'd written.  Over the past few months, my husband has asked me several times if there were any unforgiveness in my life. It was a prayer based question and fair and honest.  I'd deny each time that there was anything.  I remembered suddenly the scripture in Matthew 5:21-25.

21“You have heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment.’^d 22But I say, if you are even angry with someone,^e you are subject to judgment! If you call someone an idiot,^f you are in danger of being brought before the court. And if you curse someone,^g you are in danger of the fires of hell.^h

23“So if you are presenting a sacrificeⁱ at the altar in the Temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, 24leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God.

25“When you are on the way to court with your adversary, settle your differences quickly. Otherwise, your accuser may hand you over to the judge, who will hand you over to an officer, and you will be thrown into prison. 26And if that happens, you surely won’t be free again until you have paid the last penny.^j

This evening when my husband came in I told him how difficult these past few weeks have been, from the night of the dream until  I stood at the sink.  I told him I'd been guilty of unforgiveness, of holding onto anger against him and I told him I needed to forgive him, but I also needed his forgiveness.  It doesn't matter what he did or when.  It truly doesn't.  This is not about stirring up past hurts but acknowledging that they were there, that I needed to free myself of this emotion, that I would accept the responsibility in the future of letting him know when I felt hurt or grieved or angered if he were responsible for those feelings. 

I can't have this same closure with others in my life, but it's important that I do this with John.  It's part of the trust we have in our marriage.   He graciously accepted my forgiving him and then he forgave me for holding aught against him...That's the way it should be.  Thank You Lord, for this man in my life. 

I won't be able to have the same great results in all cases.  I can't change circumstances as they stand.  I'm not able to confront all the people who have caused me to harbor anger.  But I am grateful for the revelations that have led me to this place tonight.