All The World Is A Possibility

Do you remember what it felt like when you graduated from school? You had the whole world by the tail and there was nothing you couldn't do. This is a good morning. I am feeling kind of like that. I have spent the last hour on the internet just surfing. In the end there's nothing going to come of it all but it was just fun to dream. I have been looking mostly at real estate in Portugal... lovely homes there for very little money. You can see here and here what I've been looking at.  I thought why not... I'm free. But then I'm not free really. Mom and Dad cannot be left to fend for themselves and the Daughters are not quite ready to strike out on their own. But who knows what the future holds in store. Perhaps after the girls are finished with school the opportunity will come again. My options are still there. I just might have to do a little house keeping to get things ready for such a momentous opportunity.

Right now I am looking at two houses in Nfld. They are both in the Wesleyville area. I have spent a lot of time over the years camping up that way and discovering the beauties of that coast. At first I did it with my parents and I have pictures that go way back, of me walking on Cape Freels beach from when I was 16 yrs old. (that's 30 odd years ago!) I have been back there many times and I even spent a wonderful vacation there with Him. I've always wanted to go back that way and living around that area was always just a dream. But that is what I want... to make this dream a reality. Wesleyville is a community full of quaint homes that are built between rocks, on rocks, and over rocks. Suffice it to say that the terrain is somewhat rocky.... except for in between where it is boggy. There are few trees but that's ok because you can look out to the skyline and see for miles and miles.  There is a good hospital and a good high school, both of which are necessities if I am to make a good life for the girls and my parents. There is also good tourist trade and that may be the best thing for me.  I am looking at dealerships for spinning and weaving equipment. I am looking at teaching in my area of interest. I am looking at spinning and weaving for sale. I am looking at writing too. There are a multiple of things that I might be able to do. Then there are the berry picking grounds.  Some of the best bakeapple picking grounds are within a short walk. Some of the best blueberry picking is along that coast too. It makes my mouth drool to think about it.

I spent the day yesterday going through all the old pictures. 22 years worth of pictures. I kept thinking this has all been such a lie. But they brought back great memories of when the girls were little. Of good times canoeing, of good times traveling, of tents I had forgotten about and backpacking trips that were awesome, of wildlife encounters that were amazing. I thought about places I haven't seen in many years. I thought about people I haven't seen in many years.  A real walk down memory lane it was. I hardly cried. Now that I know what Mike has been doing behind my back for so long I realize that it was all a lie anyway. Still it was a joy to look at the girls first Christmas and their first day of school and going on a train for the first time when we were in Calgary and the Calgary zoo. It was fun to look at pictures of our first home and our first trip together and my nephew when he was baptized as he sat on the floor of my parents house with Daughter #1 who was just starting to sit too. It was fun to look at my children's various birthday parties and times when we would go camping with them. I sorted out a pile of books too yesterday. So the day was productive. I'm glad I will not have to go through them again.

Later: It is now evening and I had intended on getting this posted earlier in the day. A friend popped by and we had a monumental fruit salad for lunch with ice cream... real mend-your-heart food. It was lovely here with the temperatures so high and yet enough breeze to keep the blasted mosquitoes away. Tonight though I find myself worrying. We were supposed to hear from the people who made an offer on our house in regards to our counter offer but there hasn't been a sound all day. Also the fellow who is interested in buying my mother's and father's house was supposed to let me know tonight too. I called his phone and left  a message but I'll be honest.... this doesn't look good. I will try to get in touch with all of them tomorrow, if I can. That's what bothers me most that I may have to stay here until the house sells, and if it doesn't sell until later in the year then I'm really hooped about going home. Sometimes it feels like everything is conspiring against me.  A real Job's comforter I am.

Anyway the sky is darkening and I feel my eyes beginning to droop... so I guess it is time to think of bed time. Maybe I'll dream of a new life is Portugal!!

Packing

Since I got back on Saturday I have begun the arduous task of packing up. Saturday started with the Christmas stuff. It's been just over a month since Mike dropped... actually I need to say this differently... since I discovered Mike's secret bomb. I have discovered that he married me not for love but because he felt obligated. It has to do with a big breakup I was going through when I first met Mike. He felt he had to marry me since I had broken up with a rich guy to be with him. I am horrified to know that he has never loved me... Just "liked me". And that's why we got married.  Me completely in love... and he just liked me. I have been discovering more and more about this man that I thought I knew so well. At first my heart was broken but now it feels like it is embedded in ice. Every day the shroud of secrecy is peeled back a little further and I see the real Mike. He has been living a double life for twenty years. I feel contaminated with shear evil. Absolutely penetrated with sick disease. At times I don't know what to do with myself. I gave him everything... I gave him my heart. I feel violated and taken advantage of. And so I pack. The Christmas stuff was first, burning things that I attached sentiment to. Then I did several photo albums ripping photos in two where we were taken together.... he gets his half and I get mine. It has been all one great and masterful lie. What a fool I am. What a fool I am... When I leave I will not look back. I hope to never lay eyes on him again. He has taken away any chance I ever had at believing in love.  Is there such a thing?!! I look around me and see old couples who seem to love each other. It looks so real but so out of reach.  I don't think it is in the books... at lest not for me...

Today, I will keep on packing with my eye to the future. I look forward to the ocean and sinking my feet into the soft sand where the ocean curls it's tides around my ankles. I look forward to the salt driven winds. I will look forward to unpacking in a haven away from the devil incarnate, where hopefully the hounds of hell cannot find me, for they have been biting at my heels a very long time and I didn't know they were there. 

We go through this life innocent to the evils that penetrate the layers of reality. But they are there. They are there my friends. Certainly to God, I have had my share.

Next up books to pack... and I guess it is time to get on with it...

Sayings Applicable In My Life Right Now

Eventhough a cow has a long tongue doesn't mean she can kiss well. From bad marriages can come great children. God created a world full of many little worlds. If dumbness were a drop of water, you would be an ocean. If the fool didn't belong to me, I'd be laughing too. If the world will be redeemed then it will be through the merit of children. If there is bitterness in heart sugar in the mouth won't make life sweeter. If you lie down with dogs you get up with fleas. In a lucky time it is good to talk. In an unlucky time it is better to keep silent. In sleep, man does not sin, but his dreams do. Laughter is heard farther than weeping. Man is what he is, but not what he used to be. Never mind the remorse, don't commit the sin. No one believes a liar even when he tells the truth. No one hides, neither the wicked his wickedness, nor the fool his folly. The crow flies high but settles on a hog. The ocean cannot be emptied with a can. Time is the best cure

Shedding

I find myself wanting to shed. I want to shed everything that has anything to do with my former life as a wife. (no obviously not the kids... that's a mothering thing anyway not a wife thing.) Anything that he has given to me in the last year is getting chucked or given to someone else. Even the beautiful teapot that he gave me a couple of years ago is going. Pituuy... I'm done with it all. He hasn't given me much in the last while anyway. Today I got rid of my iPhone case. Daughter# 2 was trying to plug it into the truck's radio, but the case was getting in the way of the plug going all the way in. So she asked if she could take the case off. I said yes. So she took the case off and asked me where to put it. I said toss it cause I didn't want it. It was given falsely so I wanted it gone. Hopefully someone found it and will use it but I never want to see it again. There's lots of stuff that I want to shed as a matter of a fact. The list is long and I feel contaminated every time I touch it. But enough about that. Today he will be leaving for JCR camp. Yeah! Today I will be packing and returning to my memory foam mattress. Let me tell you I can't wait. I will be glad to see the end of my used-to-be-home but I do love my memory foam mattress. Things will be a little more relaxed there with him away. There will be a computer to use so I can upload pics again and not have so many mistakes from too large fingers on too tiny keys. There will be a TV on which to watch movies. There will be a fully supplied kitchen. But I do have to say that it won't be home. Home is where your heart is and mine is not there. I think my heart is wrapped tightly in a cocoon waiting patiently for a new debut. - - This week will be a week of divorce as I will be getting the ball rolling. It will be a week of house work as in temps. It will be a week of packing and tossing and sorting and dividing and tossing. Then there will be a humongous garage sale. And then there will be more of the same. Actually it feels retry darn good to be shedding so much of former lives.- - I'm falling asleep. So I will end on this note as Daughter # 2 tossed the iPhone out the window I saw it briefly flying through the air. Ever since I only wished that mMike had been standing there and it had smacked him right up the side of his head.

Finally A Good Night's Sleep

After a month of raking myself over the coals I have convinced myself that I can go on. The girls are full of plans and the parents are full of plans. I had a really hard time wrapping my head around the fact that my husband had at sometime been lost to me. But. This week of taking refuge in this house that belongs to my friend has been a chance to heal, a chance to see what life will be like. It is too close to him. I have realized things while here that have been my own wake up call. Right now I am thinking that if I moved to China it wouldn't be far enough. I can not get far enough fast enough. Everything in me screams RUN. While I was working on becoming a Master Spinner my Michael died and in his place was reborn a shadow of who he was. There is meanness there now. I see it in his face but he tries to hide it from me. He is not the kind and generous person I knew. He died on June 6th and dies a little more each day. - - So I have spent this week hiding away from this world of meanness and harshness and I have found another little oasis in a Tsunami hellish reality. It is a house on the banks of the mighty Peace River. It is a house among friends. I wish I could stay here. But on Saturday he will clear out and I will go back to the log house we live in. It does not feel at all like home. Everything there feels foreign and strange. This little house has become my new home. Here I am among friends... friends who care about me. Who think of me as worthy. Who don't think of me as a ball and chain. Here I am not someone to be rid of. These people care that I have my own ideas and wants and dreams. I will miss these friends of mine. These people who give a damn when I go to Nfld. in some ways I wish I could buy this wee house on the banks of this river. I wish I could win a lottery so that I could go to Nfld. to live but return here each summer to renew old friends and love this place that I have come to care about, this valley of water and eagles, of beauty and power. It has one and only one draw back. I look out the window to the river and I can see Michael and I whipping around the bend as we came in to our landing point a few years ago when we did our river trip. It was a beautiful time and I always wanted to go again but we didn't... For so many reasons that I think are stupid now. He was busy in the summer and I was distracted by my spinning and weaving. We never made time. We never made the effort. He resented having to work in summer time and he blames me for that. But what happened was that he didn't see the future, and he didn't have the patience. He never was a patient person. He lost the dream. So I sit here looking over the deck out to the river that drew me in and touched my soul and I will move on. I will find someone who is patient and we will have different dreams. I have nothing to be ashamed of. Oo kept the dream. I loved with all my might. I did not cheat, steal, or lie, I did not hurt our children our tear apart our family. He did all of those things and is still doing them. He is a sad and pathetic human and I am better off without this new him.

Bye To My Manitoba Maple

6 a.m. I am feeling drastically run down after a night with not a wink of sleep. Last night was a bad one... a really bad one. Today I will lose one of my Manitoba Maples. Daughter # 1 is going JCRing. I will miss her terribly. She has been a rock. As has her sister. They are truly the best of my marriage. She and I have giggled together and cried together... I am so blessed in my girls. She is excited to go and I am excited for her. There will be a big fat paycheck at the end of this and she is looking forward to that as much as anything. It will give her money to buy things that she needs in Nfld. and on the way to Nfld. She is packed and ready I just have to wake her. I love her so much you just can't know how much. My sweet girl my two sweet girls... my beautiful Manitoba Maples.

Manitoba Maples

I've always loved Manitoba Maple trees. They have always felt like old friends. I will take five saplings with me when I leave. My friend whose house in which I am staying, has lots of self start Manitoba Maples. I don't know if they will grow where I am going but I will plant them in the rich earth of home and hope for the best. In every home I have had I have left trees of some variety and it has always been a significant thing to do. I will be leaving here two lovely Lilacs, loads of Blue spruce some green gage plums and any number of cargana. With my love of trees, there is something significant about planting trees in each new place I live. I usually try to plant a tree for each person living there. Five Manitoba Maples... one for each Daughter, one for each parent and mine will stand alone. I will shelter them from the ocean and the barrage of salt winds that prevail near the north Atlantic. My hope of course is that they grow exponentially. - - I have been thinking about my future and trying to put a positive spin on my possible endeavours. At this point I am just trying to get it through my head that I even have a future... at least I feel like any future without him in it just seems odd. - - Yesterday I took Daughter # 1's advice. I put some highlights in my hair. I like it. Tomorrow I will add a little curl. Perhaps we will have a salon day. We can't today because we are going back to HH so that Daughter #1 can pack for her flight to Vernon, where she will be working for the next three weeks with the JCRs. While in hh today i will pick up Daughter #2 and bring her back with us tonight. Tomorrow i will put her on the flight. I am anxious to see her fly alone... but she is sixteen and it is time for her to try things on her own. Besides there will be a ranger at the other end to meet them. Her dad will be leaving on Saturday for the same destination on a bus load of kids as one of the chaperones. I am missing Daughter # 2 but texting her often. I will be glad to have her with me this evening. I will be doing fun things with her as much as I can since that has been what I have tried to do with Daughter #1. Still I look forward to my own bed and my memory foam mattress. My back is beginning to ache tiredly from lack of comfort during the sleeping hours. It feels like we girls in this family are the three Manitoba Maples. We are strong, and we shelter each other. But. Most of all we are beautiful.