Peeking out from My Lonely Place

Up until today, I've been feeling the lonelies... you know...  those times when the space around you is too tight, dark, isolated to the point where you feel like the only person left behind and the rest of the world is far away.  On the bright side, being alone affords me a great freedom -- I can do what I want and not answer to anyone but myself, and, ah-hem! my cat, Mr. Snuggles.  My moods swing from lonely to wanting to be alone with nothing and nobody in between.  But then there was today.  I  mustered the moxie to ask my cousin Terry if she wanted to visit.  She not only saved me from boredom, she assured me I wasn't alone and she treated me to Strawberry Delight at DQ. 

I get so swamped in my aloneness (or is that oneness? wholeness?) that I forget I'm not the only person in my family who lost their mother this year.  I still catch myself thinking my mother is still alive.  I catch myself thinking about gifts I want to give her... and it doesn't help that in my dreams both my mother and Aunt Madge tell me that they are really alive, that the funerals were just some big hoax.  I almost wake up believing that could be.  In any case, it's amazing how a little visit from family or a friend can bring so much joy.  I had to get out of the house today.  Sometimes I carve myself out a little hole and tend to stay there too long...
 


I choose to hermit myself away.  I get too comfortable.  I don't complain too much, but then again, I do and feel guilty about it.  I don't have things that rough.  I can be lazy yet I'm always working on one project or another... but my bed, my walls, ugh...  me too sleepy.  I need a change of scenery every now and then just so I can retreat.  A good healthy dose of both, actually.

Last weekend was Homecoming and the entire neighborhood was hooting and hollering it up.  There were as many empty tumblers and beer cans as there were dead leaves all over the green.  I never liked the whole beer house party scene, but I did my fare share of partying when I was a freshman in college.  It's hard to believe that was nearly 20 years ago!  I still feel like I'm 21.

Here is my tumbler...

I have this nasty habit of re-using straws and I think I'm addicted to ice.  I'm also addicted to Diet Dr. Pepper again.  Love it as much as my usual poison of choice, Diet Coke Plus. 

Though I lack company a lot, I don't live completely cut off from entertainment.  I took three days last week to watch Supernatural season 5.  Although I don't care for the whole angels-at-war-search-for-God-and-fuck-all-the-Pagan-gods storyline, it's the actors who really make the series worth my watch. 



I never lack for love.  Mr. Snuggles constantly reminds me that I'm the best Kitty Momma in the world.  Heck, I like to think he's the best damn kitty in the whole world!  He even reminds me to take my insulin if I fall asleep too early and wakes me up if I over sleep in the morning (it's not hard to think of the reason why... Mr. Snuggles loves his kibble at regular times).


Mr. Snuggles doesn't like the flash much.  But he'll humor me.  For now.


I admit that, when I'm at my most lonely, I get the most lazy.  Mr. Snuggles in the photo above demonstrates how cluttered my bedroom has gotten since my television was moved into the room.  I inherited a new TV from my Aunt Madge (she died last August) and the presence of an old piece of furniture to remember my aunt by is comforting but I still have yet to hook up a DVD player to it.  When I'm not in my bedroom, I'm in my livingroom watching VHS tapes.  Seriously!  Like going back in time.  I kinda like having to rewind.  But I have to admit I've been spending too much time in my bedroom.  I've been eating in there as well as drawing and doing just about everything.  I have a whole apartment and I'm camped out in one little area.  I let myself go a little bit, then late one night I just ATTACKED my messes.  I love to clean in the middle of the night.  I don't like anyone seeing me taking out my garbage during the day.

I'm crazy like that. 

Fifteen years ago I had such a severe bout of Severe Weather Phobia that I lived -- literally LIVED -- in a closet.  That is an episode of my crazy I don't want to revisit.  Even though I get touches of that phobia, I've pretty much conquered it through cognitive behavioral therapy.  My counselor at the time suggested that the phobia could've been actually agoraphobia.  I do tend to occasionally have symptoms of that phobia, but after a friend asked me in earnest if I have an anxiety for everything, the answer is, I have Panic Disorder!  So, yeah, pretty much. I'm usually good at hiding it because people do react to me weirdly when I let the symptoms manifest -- but there are times when it's not good to hide it, I just deal with it.  Just anticipating how people will react to me can keep me home.  I also hate to have to explain to people what I'm going through.  I don't want to make a scene or a fuss.  I don't mean to make this all about my panic, but it is a contributing factor to me not getting out much.

My life's goal is to continue to improve my mental health.  I am strong enough to rise above my problems.  And I'm not a bundle of problems.  I'm a person.

An ex-boyfriend, after eight years of friendship after we stopped dating, turned on me back in 1997 and said, "I can't be friends with you anymore because you have too many problems."  Oh, he ceased being a friend after that for sure!  But it's comments like that that stick in my mind for years and just motivate me to prove to myself that I'm strong.  What was that guy thinking, anyway?  Asshole.  And, yeah, that guy went on to become a psychologist himself.  I wonder if he ever tells his patients that?  It brings out the grizzly in me.  Makes me want to kick some karma up his ass.



And with such unconditional love from my cat and being surrounded by images and things I love, it's hard to leave home.  But lately I've been longing for more companionship.  I just don't know how to get it.  I deeply dread dating.  Never had good responses to the many years I attempted online dating services.  In fact... I've had better luck meeting people through blogging!  *sigh!*  Writing that just made me miss my old blog haunt Mindsay.com.  It's there I realized that blogging can really be a godsend -- a nice, comfy way to reach out to people of a like mind.  Since I've reluctantly started a blog here, I can't help feeling mournful, but worse... like I've abandoned a big piece of my life that gave me great joy.  But, hey, onwards and upwards!

I always start a blog and want to write something hopeful or significant, but tonight it looks like I'm just talking about myself, my cat, my home...  my hopes?


This was the view from my front window this morning.  What is not pictured are the trucks that have been plowing through the nature reserve beyond the trees.  I haven't been able to keep my usual late night schedule.  Each morning at 7am the construction is as loud as an alarm and goes on all day long until 6pm.  I will soon be having a little river running along the property.  As exciting as that sounds, the process is LOUD.  I wish it could go more quietly.  Deadline for the Moses Creek Restoration Project is December 1st -- does this mean I'll have to suffer this noise each day until then?  Gods, I hope not!

All the lovely geese and swans we had last year are too spooked to come to the reserve for their autumn visit.  I miss hearing their honking in the early morning hours...

And you know what?  I have some  Diet Dr. Pepper waiting for me at home right now.  I'm easy to please, really.  Just give me some soda and a good conversation and I'm anybody's!