Faith

As a child I had a vehemence for God that only the young can bear. I really believed that God was all around me in everything I saw and did (and I still believe that).... that He was a personal God that would come to my aid and pick me up when I was down. He didn't disappoint... at least not then.

In recent years God and I have had a more subdued relationship.  Until three years ago I had been given a calling to reach as many people as I could through the practice of lay preaching. I had even begun to bring the reserve sacrament to shut ins. It felt like something that I should be doing and more importantly something that I wanted to do. But there came a point when the church decided in their wisdom (little bit of sarcasm there) to take away the power to take communion to those who have need of it. I lost the ability to offer the reserve sacrament to people though no fault of my own, and I began to get weary of the preaching because it was taking it's toll on me and I felt that I desperately needed a break. And so I stepped down as a lay preacher at St. Peter's here in HH. For the first year I put my feet up and didn't even bother to go to church because I felt that I really needed to step back from the church and relax for a while. I felt that God knew I had given as much of me as I could and that He would forgive me some indulgences. Then after a year I started to feel the inclination to go to church once again but as a parishioner and not as one of the movers and the shakers. By then we had visiting clergy coming in the form of a south African gentleman who preached for the Lutheran church. Our church is four denominational... Anglican, United, Lutheran and Presbyterian. I had been brought up as an Anglican but I began to take great pleasure in the sermons of this Lutheran Minister and found so much to learn and benefit me.  For the first time in years I felt that I was making progress again in my faith.

Since my separation with Sir Arsewipe I have looked around me and struggled with my relationship with God.  How could He have let this happen.... how could He have not intervened on my behalf... how could He not be with me.  I have begun writing, sometimes two or three times a day, a prayer to God.  It is my own book of Psalms... psalms that I write myself.  I realize that He is with me... all the time... but God and I have become like an old couple. We sit in our rockers on the front veranda and watch the sun setting but we really don't have much connection anymore. I reach out to Him but he is not listening.... He reaches out to me and I cannot give Him what he wants. He has been too demanding... and as a result I have become too resentful.

I have struggled with that... I am struggling with that.

But human beings are nothing more than a dichotomy of challenges and complex characteristics. We are fickle.... one of our greatest sins. I think it is better to sit in the rocker and be together than to turn our faces away from each other. God would never turn His face from me... but as a human I have faults enough... I am sure I could be lured.

So, where do you go from that?

Some Days

Some days I have a hard time... a really hard time.  Yesterday was one of those days. I can't help thinking that some strange world has merged with mine and reality seems almost like something from Star Trek.  I used to think everything in my world was beautiful and good and how could anything go wrong. I realize now that things can go very wrong in the blink of an eye.

I get up each morning and I automatically put my hand out to feel.... air. It is a lonely world I am living in these days.  I liked this painting this morning because it makes me feel better knowing that for every old sock there is an old shoe... and hopefully that is the case for me. Hopefully I won't always be this lonely. It is the loneliness that makes you stupid... it is the loneliness that draws you to the flame.

Yesterday the movers did their assessment of all that I want to take with me. Based on my list and the growing pile in the sunroom it will not be cheap. Today I will get the results of their pricing and depending on what they come back with I will have to start axing more stuff as needs be. Two days ago I, silly girl that I am, put out a PSA for some things that we have decided to sell... I got a really good response.... better than I was expecting. So much so that I was crazy busy for the whole day. I had to take apart and put back together the old futon couch and while I was working on it I ended up screwing up my back. I very quickly decided not to take chances anymore and took some meds yesterday. I cannot afford to get a really bad back now. There's too much at stake. Today I will be packing up the deck and although the wind chimes are something that I love like you wouldn't believe... I will not be taking them with me. They were a wedding gift... they will stay with Sir Arsewipe. I don't think I could handle listening to them but then I might change my mind.

I also have a plan to paint the upholstery of my big armchair... the one that I have used for years in front of the computer. I know that sounds weird but I have done quite a bit of research on this and have seen it done quite successfully. The chair is a good chair and a very comfortable chair... a few years ago when I got sick of Sir Arsewipe's pointless and unthoughtful gifts to me for special occasions I decided to buy myself a rocking chair for my birthday. I searched for the right one and came across a fairly inexpensive chair that was like a wing back but with rockers instead of legs. I love it but as the years have gone by I have noticed it deteriorating in looks because of the usual wear and tear on the fabric. It looks old and dirty now but still not showing any sign of rips or tears. So I will paint it. Apparently it is supposed to give it a leathery kind of look when painted. I hope it turns out ok because I would hate to leave my old chair behind.

Today I am waiting also for the results of the buyers inspection. The day that I put out the PSA to sell all of the unwanted and more importantly unneeded items, was also the day of the official inspection on the house here. We will see if they are happy with everything or if they will require further changes. Hopefully not. That worries me. You see I have been so focused on getting on with my life that I have forgotten to look over my shoulder and watch for danger creeping up behind me. Anything could twist things up and make life an unalterable hell for me at this point.  So I sit in limbo for a few more days and wait for Sir Arsewipe to get the renos finished so that the financing will be approved on the house and we can move on with our lives. I just know that it is not healthy for me to stay here. I need to have a new setting so that I can put the whole hell that my life has turned into behind me.

Pray... really hard... I need all the help I can get.

Love the blues and greens of this painting... so peaceful.

Stupid...

It never ceases to amaze me how stupid one person can be.

Somewhere, I Am Meant To Be...

I've realized lately that I have spent the last twenty years closing off and bricking up a part of me that I didn't realize was so important. The Daughters asked me the other day what element I thought I belonged to. Air, Earth, Water or Fire. I know that I have always had a firey temper and my parents have always chastised me for that... but it has been quick to flare and quick to fade.  More and more as I get older I realize that there is no point in having a temper because all it does is hurt me in the end.  I remember when we had our first cat while still living in Ontario... one day I was heading out the door to go to town and Sir Arsewipe was waiting for me in the car. I went to get the cat to put him out so that we wouldn't find any deposits when we got home and the bugger ran off down the hall to hide under a bed... which was a normal behavior for him when he didn't want to go out. I stomped down the hall in a fit of rage and as I did so he turned tail and ran between my feet.  I whirled around headed after him so I could catch him before he hid somewhere else and wiped out landing resoundingly on the floor. On my way down I struck my elbow and scraped up my back on a bookshelf that was in the hallway and ever since then I have had a slipped disk... I'm not sure if the slipped disk can be attributed directly to that incident but it certainly didn't help... so definitely it would be easy to think of fire as my element.

Since the other day when the girls asked me what was my element, I have been thinking about it and I have realized that it is not fire. Even with my firey temper, I think more than anything water is my element. That doesn't mean that I can't have a tempestuous temper... let's remember that the ocean can rear it's ugly head and be hungry in it's fierceness too.  But when it is calm there is something that is so attractive and alluring. Am I attractive and alluring... I don't know, maybe at one time I was. But I do know that I am deep. There are depths of me that no one will ever touch just as there are depths in the ocean that no one will ever know.

For twenty years I have lived away from the ocean and I can safely say that I miss it like nothing I have ever missed before. I even miss the fog. There is something silent and still in me when I am around the ocean and there is something that touches my deepest self when I watch the waves rolling in on shore.  Fire scares me but the ocean... never.

I have been lucky enough years ago to have been able to spend time with friends on a cabin cruiser numerous times, and if I could choose my life it would be running a boat into the wind, standing on the bow with the spray whipping up over my face every time she digs in under a swell. I have been lucky enough to stand on the deck of a trawler with the whales playing beneath as they rolled onto their sides to stare at me leaning over the edge. I have been lucky enough to drift through a mile long and who knows how deep school of jelly fish and watch them drifting with the current in a ballet of grace and beauty.  I have been lucky enough to watch plankton glow in the dark of night just beneath the surface of the sea.... and heard them too... they do make a sound not unlike the sound of the Aurora. It is a faint tinkling sound. I have been lucky enough to watch porpoises frolicking in the wake of our boat as we cruised along on a sunny evening as the sun was setting. And all the time I was experiencing these things I never thought to look up and watch the birds... kittywakes and gulls that would ride the air currents... but that was not my element... No, it was the ocean below that caught my attention... the living, breathing, heaving ocean. I am so looking forward to feeling it close again and feeling the tides of my blood syncing with the ocean's ebb and flow.

You see... I realize that it is somewhere that I am meant to be.....

Poetry Again

Check it out... another finished.... here

All The World Is A Palette

It is funny how when you are busy things seem to pass by and you hardly notice it. I woke up quite early this morning which is really nothing new... but I could hear the drops of water falling from the tin roof above the second story and falling to the tin roof of the first story. With each ping I though about how summer is passing by in such a whirl of busy-ness. It wasn't daylight yet so I lounged in bed quietly enjoying the peace of the early morning. After a short while, I could hear chickadees outside my window and then I began to hear the squeal of jays.  Wasn't it only a week or so ago that I blogged about the turn of summer?  I could hear it again this morning. Eventually I rolled over and disturbed Narmie enough that I decided I had better get up before he decided to give me the boot altogether.  It was as I got out of bed and looked out the window that I realized just how far summer has progressed. And I was surprised. At this point in time I would have to say that 30% of the trees that I can see from my window are already fully yellow. I couldn't believe it... and already the grass and undergrowth is turning yellow and red. Today I will take a walk down through the forest glade that borders our property. It may well be the last time that I get that chance.

I realize that autumn comes much earlier here than it does back east. So this year we will get to experience two autumns. I look forward to the reds that I have not seen for so many years that come in the maples that we do not have growing here. But then I will miss the magnificent Cantaloupe melon colour of the poplars here. Yesterday I finished cleaning and sorting the stuff in my bedroom and I came across a painting only partially finished that was meant to evoke autumnal splendour. I may take the time today to try and finish it. We will see. I have been thinking about the house thatI am hoping to purchase in NL. I have been thinking that for many years I have lived in this log home with the colours of wood all around me, and with the only relief from the colour of the wood were the blacks of leather chairs... not particularly colourful and the throw cushions and green I painted our bedroom last year. I am ready for some colour. My house will be my new palette. When going through the stacks of decorating magazines and I mean stacks I came across a few newer ones that I had kept aside last year for ideas with this house. I decided instead of taking them to the recycling I would enjoy them one I got home and so I have put them with my other spinning and weaving magazines to be shipped across Canada. At first I caught myself feeling guilty because it has become so ingrained into me that I should not think about changing things in the house for fear of upsetting Sir Arsewipe... but then it hit me.... I don't ever have to worry about him ever again. I can do whatever I bloody well want. Including getting a doggie for Daughter #2 who has been missing her little Tootsie for two years and has been trying to replace him with Jiggs whose loyalties go nowhere and with Bailey who is such a psycho freak that she likes Sir Arsewipe best of all... not that really says something doesn't it. Daughter #2 has never really found a friendly dog that she loves well and truly since Tootsie... So maybe when I get to Nfld there might just be another dog in our lives and Pops will just have to put up with it since it is my house!

Meanwhile, Sir Arsewipe is still here daily. I watch him working on the house and yesterday he was trying to get the exterior siding done and finished. He ran out of wood. I several times heard him cursing and swearing in a fit of temper. He hates that he has to finish these renovations...I know that because his Facebook post this morning was something about everyday being like a Monday. I know because even though we have "unfriended" each other I see his stuff when one of my friends comments on his posts...mind you it might be like Monday everyday because he has to face me and can't go flicking off with his girlfriend whenever he wants.  The renovations must be finished though and I thank God every day that three years ago we decided to do this because we would never have sold the house the way it was, at least not as quickly. Now it is a house... before it was just a cabin.

The air is cooler in the night now and I do not have to turn on the fan to make it bearable in my room. I still sleep with just one light blanket over me and Narmie jumps up on the bed to sleep with me along around 3 a.m. Jiggs sleeps under my bed. They quietly wait for me to rise in the mornings so they may go downstairs and out into the world for their morning check up. I do believe that they miss the alpacas. I see Jiggs over around the paddocks as though she is waiting for something... they have begun to spend more time with the horse. This is not necessarily a good thing since they like to spend time rolling around in the poop.  We thought we had a buyer for the horse and she was supposed to come and see the horse on Saturday but she never showed up... but the people who are buying our house are also interested in buying the horse so hopefully something will work out.  Yesterday I asked Sir Arsewipe what he was going to do with Little Monster and he said, "SPCA". I then asked what he was doing with Midnite.... he said I don't know because the lady who he will be house sitting for does not want animals... and he said it was hard enough with Bailey.  If it were me I would send Bailey back to the SPCA and take Midnite... poor old cat. I haven't told Daughter #1 yet since she would be horrified to know that Midnite will be put down. Collateral damage from divorce is dreadful. Midnite has been with us for 13 years and to have him put to sleep because... well we won't go down that road. Maybe there will be a better solution.

I am amazed at how cool Sir Arsewipe is... he seems to have no feelings at all. He doesn't seem to care about anything... and while I understand that more and more I am realizing just how little I knew him... I really never thought of him, even at his worst, as uncaring. I really can't wrap my head around it. Really.... it's something that I can't figure out at all. Ok so he fell out of love with me and fell in love with someone else... that happens... it's shitty, but it happens. It's this whole other side of him that is carefully shielded and hidden, that's what I can't figure out, especially how could I have not seen it.

Anyway the weeks are unfolding and I look forward to the end of the summer not because I am looking forward to fall but because I am anxious to get everything done for our divorce and get ourselves away from this heart breaking situation. This week I have to get our financial stuff ready for Wednesday for round one of our divorse negotiations. I have to go and get my formal offer on the house in Nfld signed and witnessed so that I can send it back to the real estate agent in Nfld. At some point in time this week the movers are coming to give us a price on moving our stuff. And then the inspection on this house will be done later in the week. Many things to keep me busy.

With all of the things going on that are going on it is hard to find time with the girls.  Last night I got time with Daughter #1 but Daughter #2 was upstairs on her bed reading, and dreaming up fantasy worlds. She had her friend over the night before for a sleepover and a discussion arose about hair. Daughter #2's friend said she liked my hair. I have been blond for the summer and it has been fun but I am beginning to think that the upkeep on keeping myself blond is not really worth the effort, so I will be going back to brunette before I leave here. I may decide to keep a blond steak or two though. We will see. Because Daughter #2's friend has a mother who in another life was a hair dresser, we decided that we would have a day to dye our hair later this week. I have to pick up the bleaching stuff in FSJ when I go in  and I guess I will get the brunette dye then too.  It will be like having a dye fest. Daughter #1 will get her blue streak and Daughter #2 has decided that a pink one would be cool, meanwhile I will do some brunette dyeing but like I said, to stay with the theme of "streaks" that the girls have decided on, I will keep the lighter streaks in my hair.  These are the fun things that we try to fill our lives with. I wonder if it feels like this when your spouse dies... because somehow that is really what it feels like. Only there's bitterness and hurt wrapped in it too. Some mornings I get up and I hate his guts... some mornings I get up and I wish I were well away from here... but some mornings I wake and put my hand out and realize that I am alone. It hurts all over again when that happens. And I am sure the girls are feeling his loss too.... and anger that he has turned their lives so up-side-down. And so we dye and play as much as we can.

All the world is a palette... and life is what you make of it.... right?!

Bread... The Root Of All Evil...(or maybe it's really is just Sir Arsewipe)

For the last number of years I have noticed that my health has been going downhill. At first I wasn't quite sure what was going on and I took to my bed many days for hours on end to try to get enough rest to help me. But as time progressed I realized that there was more going on than just normal aging... so I started trying different things that might help me get better. Mostly it was home remedies because the doctors checked me for everything under the sun and couldn't figure it out either. The main symptom was fatigue. I was tremendously tired all the time. I did go through a couple of years when I would have dreadful ear and balance issues but that seems to have sorted itself. Last year when I went to Olds I had the fear of God in me because I couldn't walk to the Land Sciences building without having to stop and sit and take a break on the way there it was a  mere 3/4 of a kilometre. My weight had been increasing over the last few years and I didn't seem to be able to get that under control either. After I got back from Olds last year I knew I had to get really serious about finding out what was going on with me. I went to the Doctor because I knew there was a family history of blood pressure and heart problems. It was while I was in the office seeing the doctor that he mentioned to me that my last lot of blood tests had revealed that I was anemic. No wonder I was so tired all the time! No body had thought to inform me since I was only borderline anemic and he wasn't concerned because with an iron supplement I would be as right as rain in no time at all. Wrong! I started to take the iron supplement and I did notice a difference but I was still tired all the time and I was starting to notice other symptoms that would leave me feeling wasted all the time... I won't go into them because they are a little too gruesome and personal to mention.

All the time this was happening I was so tired that I never noticed that Sir Arsewipe was beginning his emotional departure from me.

I carried on through the winter having blood test after blood test and then they started to send me for more serious tests... everything in my body seemed to be shutting down on me. Let me tell you I was scared.

The week that Sir Arsewipe was in Comox for the PHASE training (he was there with his girlfriend) in January, I had one of the worst weeks I have ever put in in my life. I had severe pain in my lower left side and some pain in my lower right side and I was starting to think that I might have cancer.  Fear reigned supreme. Nightly, I would want to talk to my husband but the cell service was not all that great. In hind sight, I have to wonder just how true that was or if he was blowing me off for his girlfriend, (staring at her while she lay on her bed.. apparently he has pictures). I really needed my soul mate to talk to, but I wasn't getting much support.

Finally he was home and I went for the ultrasound they also sent me for a soft tissue cat scan. Both tests went well and nothing came back from them which confirmed that there was likely no cancer. That alone was a real relief.

Along about that time I had one of the ladies from the spinners and weavers guild come for lunch and she told me that my symptoms were very similar to hers... You see she has Celiacs Disease. Celiac's Disease is when your body cannot deal with the gluten that is found in wheat. I thought it was so strange that her symptoms and mine were so close. I went to my doctor once again and talked to him about the possibility of having Celiacs disease. He once again sent me for blood tests. Meanwhile I was having a hard time dealing with food...  some days were good and some days were not so much. By  this time we were well into spring and I was working very hard on the level 5 homework trying to spin some days 12 hours while all I wanted to do was put my head down and sleep. My body was telling me that I was very sick but I didn't know what I was sick with. I waited for the results to come back from the tests and since the tests had to go to Vancouver I knew that it would take a while. I decided to try living without bread in my life and cutting out wheat as much as possible. Also through the winter I had been noticing that I had been having yeast outbreaks in the weirdest of places like in the fold of my elbow and behind my knees. Very strange. I started making breakfast for Sir Arsewipe and the girls and then getting a different breakfast for me after they were gone to school, one that did not involve wheat. I started making hash browns each morning instead of eating toast. I would eat rice and rice crackers instead of having a sandwich and I began to eat more salads and I also decided to cut out eating cheese as much as I could. I was still taking iron but I was so tired that I felt that maybe I should be taking more iron. I upped my dose of iron just slightly and it was after I did all those things that I began to notice a difference.

The doctor finally called with the results of my tests and said that there was no Celiacs disease...

We had no idea what was going on and we still don't but taking wheat out of my diet has had amazing effects on me. My friend has told me that there is a lot of Celiacs disease in her family and she has never been diagnosed with it either because in order to get a positive diagnoses you have to eat wheat and it makes her very sick. She has decided to learn as much about the disease and self regulate her diet accordingly. The other day I had wheat again for the first time in a long time... I had a begel burger the other night and then because I hadn't made a pizza for months I thought the next night I would make pizza. Not good. Yesterday I felt so bad... worse than I have felt in a long time. The wheat in the begel and the wheat in the crust of the pizza did it worst and in the morning I wanted to curl up in a ball and not move... once again I was having pain in my right side and severe pain in my left side. So as far as I'm concerned wheat is very much a culprit to my ill health. In addition to that the three months where I was virtually wheat free I noticed that I didn't have one yeast outbreak anywhere on my body.... that says it all as far as I'm concerned. I might not be clinically diagnosed as having Celiacs disease but I obviously have a serious sensitivity to wheat and gluten.

Through it all I was so tired. This summer I have noticed a marked difference in the fatigue as well. I have had more energy than at any time for the last year at least. Even at Olds I felt better... I would walk to class each morning and not worry a fig about having to stop to rest or catch my breath.

One of the sad things about all of this is the fact that Sir Arsewipe has had no patience for any of my ills. He has made no bones about the fact that it didn't matter to him that I felt gross. I have tried talking to him about the fact that I was ill and that was part of the reason that I had not lived up to his expectations. He does not understand and probably never will since he has never had tolerance for illness at all. It had only been the last few months that I have looked back over our twenty years of marriage and realized that. I remember years ago having a conversation about suicide and he told me that suicidal people were weak... I always was horrified by him saying that because suicides are not caused by weakness but by illness. I also remember that he said that if ever he became a paraplegic he would rather not be alive... I could never understand that because many paraplegics have very fulfilling and outstanding lives. He also told me that he never wanted to be blind... I realize now that this is a serious flaw in his personality and shows a marked lack of consideration for those less fortunate than he. Sometimes I wonder why he married me since I am missing the thumb on my right hand and I have a steel rod and 15 spinal fusions in my back.  I know that he has had serious issues with his back problems and hates the fact that he has this weakness. I think he thinks he should be perfection itself... (snork, double snork, and some more serious snorking).

Over the winter you perhaps will remember that Dad was so ill right after Christmas. Each night during his illness I would go to their house and make sure that dad was as comfortable as I could make him and Sir Arsewipe would come with me because some nights dad would need help being lifted and aided to the bathroom.  It was only after we split up that I discovered that Sir Arsewipe had had no tolerance for his own father-in-law and the whole illness. The whole time he was helping he was putting on one face to us and saying other things to his chit... He said, "I've been helping to care for my wife's parents." She says... "why what's up with them?" He says, "She's in early Altzeimers and he is with more ailments than you can shake a drug store at." She says, "o wow lucky you." and he says, "At least he's not bed ridden anymore."  More and more I have realized that Sir Arsewipe's empathy is superficial at best.  He is only concerned about others weaknesses in so far that it does not inconvenience him.  I realize too that the reason that he fell out of love for me was because he has never really known what it is to feel real love... real love is sticking with someone through thick and thin... in sickness and in health... these words from our marriage vows come back to haunt me.

He really is the worst kind of despicable. Sad really... I thought he was such a good person and more and more I've found out just how not good he actually is.

He had no tolerance for my ill health, it was just one more nail in the coffin. Eventually, I discovered what was wrong with me but by then he had moved on.... the sad thing is that life is like that... you always have to deal with that type of thing and probably the same will happen in any relationship he has....

I am feeling better today mostly because I have not had wheat for two days.... I am resting until this heals once again and let me tell you there will be no more "Oh a little bit won't hurt me" instead I will be avoiding it altogether... taking my iron and to hell with Sir Arsewipe... he's not worth my time and effort... I just hope for his sake he never gets sick.... or maybe I do hope he gets sick and finds the same kind of empathy that he has given me and mine...