Bye :)

I have tried blogging from home before and it hasn't worked in past. It isn't working now. I just don't have anything interesting, at all, to share. I get up. The river is beautiful. I go to work. I come home. The river is still beautiful. I eat. I read. I do random activities. I feel constricted by geography and my, as I mentioned before, forlorn financial circumstances, but there is nothing to say. 

I had hoped I could dig deep, write about being a single older woman who had just moved to a different small Ontario town, how difficult - or easy - it was to pull up roots and start to put down new ones. But it isn't in me. I just don't care enough. My budget doesn't even stretch to IKEA shelving so much of my stuff remains unpacked in boxes, my to-do list, as long as my arm or longer, sits neglected, and, most serious of all, I am standing ostrich-like with my head buried deep in the sand, totally ignoring what ought to be my most pressing of all concerns, planning for my future. I know I won't like any answers I might find when I start to do the research and so I am not doing it. Instead I live day to day, putting time into my new job, exploring the area around here, traipsing frequently into Ottawa to visit with my oldest son, but not doing any of the things I 'ought' to be doing. 

So, I fear, my trusty readers... this is goodbye. 

I will continue to live in Arnprior, to teach Art, to put hours into my new job, and ramble about the area around here, and, of course, traipse into Ottawa on occasion to visit with my sons... but I just don't have enough to blog about so I will take a hiatus from blogging until I'm back off travelling again. 

I ought to have stopped posting, after all, just off the coast of Tahiti's little sister Mo'orea's shores where I swam with the whales. 

Or, more likely, I ought to have stayed there...  

Hugs, Emily.

3 a.m.

As usual.

It is 3 am and I am wide awake, unhappy, and writing in my journal.

3 am is not a good time for me to write in my journal. I seldom have anything positive to say at 3 am. This is true today.

Sigh.

Three small things happened after school today (by which I mean yesterday of course since at 3 am it is now already tomorrow.)

1) I interviewed someone who actually is willing to move in with me. He’s unemployed and smokes, but hey, I guess I’m not in Kansas anymore. (In Deep River when I was looking for a roommate Emily just appeared. She was young and cute and an excellent cook, she was brilliant (had a degree in Math) and enterprising (starting up her own business) and had interesting parents and friends, also, she happened to be named Emily which was fun… I’d just assumed I’d be able to find a similarly wonderful roommate here. Maybe not.) I say yes to him, but, now, at 3 am find myself second guessing that. Do I really want to live with someone unemployed who smokes? No. Not at all. He’s the first person in 2 months who’s shown any interest in moving in here. If I turn him down then there may be no one. Am I that desperate for a break on the rent? I can’t figure it out any more.

2) I went to a Rotary talk by someone who’d hiked the Akshayuk Pass in Auyuittuq Park up on Baffin Island earlier this year. It’s a walk that Andre and I did 25 years ago. Watching his slide show  (breathtaking scenery) and listening to the stories (some good days and some memorable ones) and hearing about the people he met there (including a French family who were in their 9^th year of an around the world voyage, their boat frozen into the bay near a small arctic town, on purpose, last winter) I am nostalgic, swept down memory lane, caught up in memories of the adventures Andre and I had on our trip (I want to interrupt the talk and tell about my own, ‘I was there too, and we, and I remember…’. But of course I don’t.) and, also, I am envious. The speaker was invited to participate in this hike. All expenses paid. Custom made gear. An ex-National Geographic photographer along as part of the expedition so fantastic photographs as keepsakes. Wow. I want to be him.

3) I chat, very briefly, online, with a friend of mine, who lives on a boat, and learn that she and her partner are taking a break and heading to Brazil for three months, to… well it doesn’t matter really, does it. Wow. I want to be her.

Three months from now I will be here. In Arnprior. I will be teaching everyday. I am not looking forward to it. I with either be living with an unemployed smoker or too broke to even consider going away for the summer. I can’t right now, at 3 am, figure out which would be the least bad of the evils. The potential for self-growth seems slim. I will not, of this I am over 99% certain, be being invited to go on an all-expense paid trip of a lifetime to the far north, nor will I be retired and living on a boat and planning exotic vacations elsewhere.

I seem to remember that I had fooled myself a few days ago into thinking there were some silver linings to my being here, imprisoned (by self-choice) in this existence, but, right now, at 3 am, I find that highly unlikely. I can’t, at all, imagine that there is any up-side to my being trapped here, trapped by my job and my forlorn financial circumstances,  and I can’t seem to think my way out of the paper bag.

In desperation I watch the latest episode Castle. Wow. I want to be Beckett.

Does anyone else see a pattern here.

Sigh.

Yes.

A typical 3 am.

7 am.

I ought to be getting ready for school. But it is pouring rain outside and my desire to go is at an all-time low. I have one very whiny grade 9 student who grates on my nerves and is getting me down. I don’t want to go to school. I want to go to Baffin Island again. Or Brazil. Or back to Bora Bora. Or even somewhere I’ve not yet been. Bali maybe. Or Bangladesh. Or, heck, even Bermuda would do, or the Barbados, or, or, or…

So. What I have to do is figure out a way to get there. I have to figure out a way to live the life I want to be living.  (And pay for it.) It won’t be easy. There must be a gazillion people who would like to be invited to go on an all-expense paid trip to Auyuittuq compared to the number that actually get invited to do so… so I’ll just have to be creative. I’ll have to take my head out of the paper bag that was suffocating it at 3 am and put my thinking cap on instead. 

I can do that. Of course. Why not? Just watch me!

Silver Linings

AKA A Rainy Shopping Day 

It was pouring rain in Arnprior Saturday so I went into Ottawa to buy a Globe and Mail. I like its crossword puzzle. I stopped in to read it on my son’s couch while he coded across the room. Very comfortable and congenial. We went out for coffee. I stayed for hours. But this is all an aside.

On the way home I dropped in at Value Village to look for curtains – not to block the view, I love my view, just to help keep the heating bill down at night because my windows are older - and I found 4 identical ones that looked like they’d do. They were priced one at $4.99, one at $8.99, and two at $9.99. When I got to the cash I asked what the return policy was, in case they didn’t fit or something, and was told it was 7 days. I asked for a month, since I don’t live in Ottawa, and the cashier allowed a compromise of 15 days. “Today is the 18^th,” she said, “so that would be the 39^th of October.” I pointed out that October doesn’t go to 39, that 15 days from now would be into November. “Oh. You’re right,” she said, “the 39^th of November then.” (What?) Next I pointed out that the curtains had different prices. She offered to let me pay $8.99, the middle price, for all of them, but I declined and said I’d just pay the ticketed prices so she then told me I wasn’t allowed to do that. (What?) At this point a supervisor came by and told her to give me all four of them at $4.99 each. She did. And my receipt says that I can return them for full refund up to the 39^th of November. It's all good. Except that I want to go back to teaching Math. I think there is a need in Ontario.

I put them up that evening. They’re great as long as you don’t mind the fact that they’re about a foot too long and drag on the ground. I’m undecided if I’ll tape them up or just cut them off. (Classy either way, I know.)

During the night a cold front came through. I was, I hate to admit this, very glad not to be at sea. The wind howled endlessly. I could hear it blowing through the trees, whipping up the water, tossing about whatever it could find. Something, perhaps my garage door, was rattling away outside. I went out to stand on my deck for a bit. Low clouds were scudding by overhead. The white pine branches - I have a fair size white pine growing up through a hole in the deck - were thrashing about. It was wild. And I was glad not to be on a boat.

Maybe I’m getting too old to crew.

The next morning, this morning, when I got up and pulled my curtains open the wind was still blowing away, the clouds were still low, and there in front of me was a bay full of angry dark grey water with so many whitecaps that they were crashing into each other. I was glad to be on land.

My house is on a point, has water on three sides of it, and picture windows all round. As I stood there and watched the water and the sky I realized that I choose to live here. This little house, for all its faults, its old windows and faulty insulation, was my choice. And I like it. I can’t really afford to live here, the rent takes up a bigger chunk of my pay check than I’d like, and I really really don’t want to know what it’s going to cost to heat over the winter (so I’ve advertised for a roommate to help out with that.) But I’m getting off topic again. As I stood there looking out over the expanse of water, the far shore a fall mix of dark green and gold with some patches of russet and red, several groups of Canadian geese flying low over the water, thinking, I’m sure, that it was about time to head south, I realized that this is the first place I’ve lived in, for ages, that I’ve chosen. My previous house, which was, of course, always, Geoff’s, was his choice. I came to love it but it was his choice. And before that, when I was in limbo, my mother always chose somewhere for me to live and I never stood up to her choices. And before that, of course, Andre had made all the decisions. It had been, I realized, over a quarter of a century since I’d chosen where to live. And I am happy with my current decision. I’m sure that most of my friends and acquaintances would be horrified - at the small size of my house, its rundown state, its hand-me-down furnishings, its Value Village curtains that drag on the floor… But I like it. I was sitting on my couch the other evening with a plate of dinner and a new National Geographic to keep me company and they both sat forgotten on my lap while outside, across the bay a series of storms flew east chasing after each, a line of flat wet steel grey squalls, and then later a huge double rainbow filled the sky and I wished I had a go-pro and I’d filmed the whole show and I realized that my supper was cold and I considered getting up and going to re-heat it but decided instead just to sit, a little longer, and watch while the rainbow faded and the darkness to slowly folded into night. And it was SO beautiful.

I still don’t want to be here, living on my own, in Arnprior, teaching, but there are silver linings both literal and metaphorical; I love the view, I love being close enough to at least one of my kids that I can drop in for coffee… and, maybe, in time, as I take ownership of the place (you know, buy cheap curtains and such) the rest will grow on me.

Art Teacher - Take 1

AKA   Impostor   AKA   If my day isn't fun all I do is look in the mirror to know who to blame

  

I am the Art Teacher at ADHS (is there some way to make sure that no one in Arnprior can access this?) which is, still, a bit of a joke. 

I did take an online "How to Teach Art" course. I even had to do a major demonstration project to go along with it in which I created a large original artwork, photographed all stages of the process, and wrote both a formal unit plan and a critical analysis. For this I opened the Curriculum Guidelines and found on page one (grade one) 'make a paper-mache animal'. I thought I could probably do that so chose it as my project. It was unexpectedly tricky. It took many many evenings to complete. Emily, my roommate, and I almost peed ourselves laughing, more than once, at my pathetic attempts to get the limbs to stay in the right orientation. I got a great mark though, I have to say. For two reasons. First I am very good at writing unit plans so I had a great unit plan, and, in my analysis I went on at great length about how challenging this project had been, how long it had taken me, how I couldn't imagine a grade one class actually doing it - but, that, given that there were paper-mache animals all round my house that my own kids had made in grade one, I knew that teachers really did do this with their classes. I was being dead serious but I think my prof thought I was being clever, writing tongue in cheek or some such. Secondly, my prof pointed out that many elementary teachers make the error of making demo projects that are too perfect for kids to emulate whereas my paper-mache really looked like something that someone in grade one could do! Go me! And this, this project, somehow qualifies me to teach grade twelve art! Someone in the government ought to look into that.

So, now, the joke's on me. I took the course, did a grade one project, and am now teaching Art grade nine, ten, eleven, and twelve!

When I was offered this job I did point out to my principal exactly how good I was at art to which he replied, "Oh my!" But he still took me on in this role. 

So here I am, in this classroom, doing my best. On the advice of a retired art teacher I downloaded and printed out the Ontario Curriculum Course Guidelines from the internet, and, frankly, almost cried. They were SO full of jargon that I really literally had no idea at all what they were trying to say. So instead of following them I do the best I can. My modus operandi goes sort of like this: I go on pintrest and find a project under any high school art site that looks both fun and interesting and comes with clear instructions and good examples, I repackage the information in kid-friendly language, make up a rubric, and present it to my classes. I give them a relevant chapter out of their textbooks to read so that they are getting a bit of theory, this takes about a day, and then I make up some introductory exercises to go along with the project I have chosen, this takes another three or four days, and then they start the project, which usually takes a week or longer. (Who knew art took so long to do?) During this time I wander the class offering my lowly opinion on how they are doing - mostly compliments with just a few constructive criticism questions thrown in (That looks like a busy background to me. What do you think? Do you think it might be more effective if you used your artist's discretion to simplify it so that the main subject gets more emphasis? I'm just asking, you are the artist. What do you think?) I throw in a bit of the Creative Process and the Critical Analysis Process and off we go. If I have chosen an appropriate project the kids a) enjoy it b) work hard at it c) stay on task and d) produce great results so I have little to do. Then, after ten days or so they hand in their work, I mark it, hand it back, and the process starts all over! I think if I knew more it would be a harder job, but, seeing as I don't know more, it is, at least for now, easy peasy. 

Part of me worries that eventually I will be 'found out' but, well, I'll just have to cross that bridge when I come to it. So, for now, I have time on my hands to write silly little blog entries like this and wonder if I have the gaul to include photos of the amazing art my students are producing. (I'd love to, but no...)

I hope everyone else who is working has a job that is as much fun! 

THANKSGIVING

Thanksgiving AKA A Time to Count Blessings.

It is Thanksgiving weekend. Definitely an appropriate time to count my blessing.

My husband wrote to me last week, after he had had one too many beers, stating that he felt his life had been sliced in half. I wrote back pointing out that he had his house filled with belongings, a good pension to look forward to, and a raft of friends collected over half a century living within a stone’s throw while I had none of these, that I didn’t know where I would be living in ten years, where any possible grandchildren might come and visit me, or how I was going to finance my future, that perhaps his cup was only half-full but that mine was empty.

That was how I felt at the time. But of course it’s not true.

So I will count my blessings again. Write them down. Remind myself of what I have.

And then, of course, stop feeling so angry, so sad, so sorry for myself, and start the job of living again.

I complain often that I am of no fixed address, have such a paltry pension as to be inconsequential and hence no idea how I will support myself when I get old, but what about what I do have? What are my top ten blessings?

I have, in no particular order, my sons, other assorted bits of family, a few friends and acquaintances, a job, some money, some stuff, my health, a Canadian passport, and the world as my oyster…

I lied. There was some order. My sons top the list for sure.

I have three fantastic sons.

Ben, my oldest, is out of town this weekend visiting his girlfriend, Steph, who lives in the States, but he lives a short 40 minute drive from where I now do and I have visited him most weekends this fall. He is in some ways my best friend and sounding board. I remember when he was a newborn and I was amazed and awed by his mere existence. It shocked me that he was male because, looking down at him sleeping in his bassinette, I would otherwise have seriously considered that he might be a clone. He has, unfortunately, a few qualities that I would not have chosen to pass on, a certain hesitancy and a definite lack of hubris (unlike the other two for example, who are just like their father, certain that they are god’s gift to mankind. They know in their bones that they are wonderful. I took up with Andre in the beginning mostly because of that very quality, the self-confidence which oozed out of his pores and radiated in all directions like a golden halo. I hoped that some of it might rub off on me. I didn’t. I am who I was. But the younger two kids have his gusto, poise, and aplomb, and hence negotiate their way through life with an effortlessness that leaves both Ben and I just the tiniest bit envious.) Ben, too, of course, is wonderful. And his similarity to me is what in many ways creates the easiness and comfort we have between us that is such a solid part of my first blessing. The other two, Fred and Alexander, are both so much like Andre that it constantly astounds me. Alexander came to stay this weekend, brought his girlfriend, their bikes, and a bag of apples. (Is he his father's clone?)The three of us, he and I and Emilie, went biking round town the first day and then off over to the nearest provincial park to explore it by bike the next. He also brought with him the news that he is working hard at school (he’s currently in 3rd year Engineering) and that he has just started a part-time job working as a landscaper which a) he loves and b) pays well and c) teaches him real life skills like how to use a rock saw and a backhoe and d) will morph into a summer job for next year. He is happy and healthy and thriving. Fred flew in from out west where he is living temporarily while looking for work to visit his girlfriend over her reading week. I knew that his flight arrived in Ottawa at 5:30 pm and so hadn’t really expected to see him that evening but Laura picked him up at the airport and they came straight to my place. He too is happy and healthy (though currently unemployed and perhaps a little stressed by this.) (I am, at the moment, so lost living here in random town Ontario that I feel an inadequate role model and so put no pressure on my kids to come and see me. To have two of them choosing to make the effort to do so, to break bread with me this Thanksgiving weekend, was beyond wonderful.) But, details aside, these three twenty-something young men, tall dark and handsome, kind, caring, and considerate, healthy, educated, and interesting are my far and above my first blessing. They give my life meaning. (As children so often do.) If I didn’t have kids, I sometimes say, life would be easier, I’d quit my job in a heartbeat, head out to the South Pacific to look for a boat, sail until I was broke and then jump off the back. But, please, don’t think that that in any way reflects on my joy in having them in my life, my thankfulness that they exist, my constant wonder that they have turned out so well… Yes, no doubt, my kids are my first blessing.

(Hmmm… if I don’t stop the wordiness this may turn out to be too long a post!)

Second, of course, though now there is no longer any order to my list of blessings, is my other random bits of family: my ex-husband who writes to me on and off, who procured a shed and put it in his back yard and lets me store my stuff there so that I don’t have to pay for storage, and who is good to my kids; my mother who meets me for coffee whenever I suggest it, lends me her sailing gear when I go off on trips, and willingly listens to my adventures; Andre’s mother who calls me occasionally, loves to talk about my boys, and always makes me feel like a favourite daughter-in-law when I go to visit her; my aunt Mary who has called me on my birthday for decades, my other aunts and uncles whom I know would make me welcome should I turn up at any time for a coffee or a weekend; and, perhaps, dare I include them, the three wonderful girls my sons are dating who might one day be daughters-in-law, who are all so different from each other, unique and wonderful in their own ways…

Third on my list of blessings is my various friends: Suzanne who had me to her cottage for the first night of this long weekend, and Shelley who will always take the time to walk with me and talk to me and with whom I have shared many many congenial glasses of wine over the past few years, and Susie who writes back to me, long thoughtful responses whenever I write to her, and Catherine whose door is always open, and Darcy who has never refused me a spot on her couch, and the list goes on… Shelia, for example, how could I forget her, my best friend of all who has helped my through more crises than I care to count, and Steve, who really cares about how I am doing, and Rick, my life coach, and Stefa, my newest friend, who is living the dream for me. Thank you all.

And then there are acquaintances, both old and new, who fit into their own category; colleagues from my old school who let me cry on their shoulders more than once, whom I know I could count on in any emergency, and the parents of my kid’s friends who helped me out so much while I was struggling to bring my boys up, and others whom I know even less, the members of the biking group I joined the year before last who pulled me through such a dark period letting me draft behind them and then filling me with sweet potato fries and fellowship, and, even more randomly, a man I went through elementary school with, who I haven’t seen since, who, bizarrely, had been following my blog and noticed when I pulled some recent posts and wrote me, more than once, to check that I was OK. Thank you all too.

I have my health. I can paddle a canoe and ride a bike. I can walk, and hike, and am fit enough now - though who knows for how much longer - to crew on sailboats. I live in a country where health care is provided, free, and my job comes with dental and vision and LTD benefits…

And my job, of course, which I say I don’t want, but which is lovely and easy and actually lots of fun. It provides me with a living wage and would, should I choose to keep it for a while, provide me with a pension. It also gives me a certain social standing and keeps my mind occupied. I don’t know if I’ll ditch it after this year. At risk of sounding repetitive I might choose to cross my fingers and close my eyes and jump, head to sea, but I have it now and it is, without a doubt, a blessing.

Which leads, of course, to money. They say that if you have enough loose change in your pocket to buy a cup of coffee you are richer than the average person on this earth. I spent a whole post complaining lately about how much money I’d recently spent, that I’d rented a lovely house on the river and bought a new car and paid a huge tax bill, and, yes, I do know I ought to be more than just a little ashamed of myself. That I can, that I can do that, all that, that I can spend all that money in one month, and bitch about it, yet not have it change my standard of living one iota, well, that is a blessing for sure. A huge blessing. One that ought to be high on my list.

And then to stuff. I have also complained this past month, too often, about how I am living in an almost empty house, with only one chair. And this, of course, is merely a reflection of relativity. It pisses me off that my husband has so much stuff, two households full, that he is paying someone else to sell it all for him, while I have, relatively, so little, but, yet, compared to the world as a whole I have lots of stuff. I have, did I mention, so much stuff that much of it is being stored in boxes in a shed in his back yard, Even here at my house where I feel I have nothing I have two bicycles, and two boats, a car, a phone and a computer and a camera, a huge bed, a comfy couch, and, really, though I might complain a lot, I have everything I want, and, when I find that I don’t, I have enough money that I go out and buy it. (I see that I am going in circles now, my blessings so rich that they are all getting muddled with each other.)

I am living in a random town in Ontario. This is another thing I have been known to complain about over the past month. But, seriously, it is a blessing, and I ought to be grateful. A quick glance at the news will tell you that many, so many, parts of the world are less well off; ebola, famine, wars… What the heck am I complaining about? I have within walking distance a wide range of shops selling anything a normal person, even from this society, could possibly want, restaurants, two grocery stores stocked with food from around the world at affordable prices, a sports center offering a wide range of activities, a library full of books (and free internet access). There is clean water that flows past my house and cleaner water that flows from my taps, there are good roads, and no chance of being shot at or blown up on the way to work, a fantastic hospital round the corner, and, as I know from the explorations of this very weekend, bicycle trials all over the place. It is paradise. To top it all off I am living in a house on the river with a view out of three sides that, if it doesn’t exactly take your breath away, at least lets you breathe. I watched the sky turn pink this evening as I started to write this – it was so beautiful that I got out my camera for the first time in ten weeks - and I know that the moon will rise soon and lay a silver trail upon the water leading right to my window. It IS a blessing.

And, because of all the above, I will not have to win a lottery in order to live, at least for a while, the dream. Though I may, or may not, go off out into the world again, I have the possibility and ability to do so. If I quit my job I will have ten years (I expect) before my health and money will run out and if I keep it I will still have two days every weekend to hike or bike or canoe a ten week block every summer to leave, fly, free, to go wherever I choose to go, to join a boat to crew or merely to traipse from hostel to hostel and explore. And I have kids and friends who might even accompany me for bits and pieces of it. So either way, with ten years to visit or ten summers to do so, I have the world as my oyster, and nothing, nothing, nothing at all to complain about.

Nothing, no I have nothing, absolutely nothing, to complain about. I have my children’s lives unfolding to look forward to and friends to share my joys with, I have money and health in abundance, and I live in a country that allows me the freedom to do as I choose. I have blessings, compared to the average person in the world, yes, but also, just, without being compared to anyone, blessings, blessings galore, spilling over. I do not have an empty cup, nor one that is half-full, no, I have a cup that is so full it is running over, a cup so full it is almost embarrassing to admit to it. I have everything, everything, absolutely everything that anyone could ever want.

All I have to do is remember that.

And be happy.

I think I can.

I will.

Happy Thanksgiving all!

Sad

Another weekend disaster AKA Too many tears

I get up early Saturday morning and head up the road to Deep River. My weekend plan is to go to Taste-of-the-Valley first and then spend the rest of the day hiking out to the ski cabin with a group of women, Sunday morning to re-pack my boxes of extra stuff, meet with Rick for coffee, and go and visit Catherine in the afternoon. I have even written, ahead, to Catherine, to check that she will be there and that I can drop by. But I get to Deep River a bit too early for any of my planned activities, and so, a bit at a loss, decide to stop by and check the status of my boxes. Geoff moved them for me from my storage locker to an old shed which a neighbour was throwing out so that I wouldn't have to pay storage fees forever. But when I get there I find that the shed leaks and my cardboard boxes full of possessions are being dripped on. I knock on the door to no avail so call Geoff. He crawls out of bed and comes into the back yard and we discuss the situation and possible solutions to it and then he gives me a tour of his house, the house I lived in with him for a decade and then on my own with my youngest kid for a couple of years after that and then on my own for a couple of years after that. The house that he grew up in – that my kids grew up in – that I gave, somewhat reluctantly, back to him. There are dog food bowls on the kitchen floor, a dog mat in his bedroom. The presence of someone else fills his house. I didn’t want to know. Any hope I ever had of moving back into the life I/we couldn’t hold together is gone. My heart is broken. I have so much trouble moving on. There is no point being angry, no point bemoaning the past, all I can do is to move on. But to what? I don’t want to move on. I don’t want to accept that I have forever left behind the comfort of this house which has sheltered me for over a decade. I don’t want to move on from the security and status quo that it provided. I don’t want. I just don’t want. I don’t want, at all, to be where I am. I don’t want to be single, to be living in Arnprior, to be responsible for my own financial well-being, to have to teach, make decisions on my own, to… Geoff offers me a certain artwork of which he has two, one of them hung on our walls forever, the other on his mother’s wall, and I say I’ll take it, I am hungry for anything familiar, but then he rescinds the offer. It might sell. He has so much extra stuff between his two houses that he has rented a stall, for six months, at a local flee market, and is paying someone to sell it all for him. And I don’t even have a chair, a single chair, in my house, except for the one that Helen gave me. I am angry. And sad. And seeing the house with all his things in it, pictures of his ex-ex-wife (not me) adorning the living room walls, and rugs he collected while off vacationing with Jen’s best friend on the floors, I know it is over. Last weekend I was angry. I was so angry to be living by myself in Arnprior that I was, spitting mad. This weekend I am just sad. 

I retreat and sit in my car down by centennial rock, the ever so familiar scene of the river and the hills across, partially obscured today by low wet clouds, in front of me, and the sadness literally spills out of me tears streaming down my face. 

I am as overwhelmed by sadness this weekend as I was by anger last weekend. My emotions are out of control. I need to get a grip on myself. Decide what to do with the rest of my life. Remember that I have so much. So very very much. And then I need to made a plan, a good plan, a real plan, for the next 25 years. 

But for now… do I go on the hike, stay here and visit tomorrow… or do I just box up my stuff and leave, head back down the valley with my tail between my legs and my tears flowing freely. 

I think, since it is the one thing I am good at I will quit. Box and go. Be back in my cold lonely empty house by this evening. Alone. So alone.

And then, maybe, start looking for a rebound relationship.

But I am not ready for a new relationship. Despite the fact that it has been five years I feel I am just out of this marriage. I still can’t believe that we didn't make things work. I still can’t believe that our communication was so bad that we couldn't keep things together and, then, when they fell apart, couldn't put them back together. I still think that we both wanted to repair the relationship. But we just didn't have the skills to do it on our own and neither of us was organized enough to get the help we needed.

One thing is certain. I am not going to come here for Thanksgiving weekend (as planned). Not now. Maybe not ever. Perhaps after I am in a position that I feel stronger in. Maybe after I have remarried. At least I know. At least I came here now, this weekend, and found out (how empty the loss of the house, of my husband, makes me feel). At least there is that.

My heart is broken. Totally broken. 

And I'm just sad. 

So I go back to his back yard. Re box all my stuff. Deal with the leaks. Ditch all my other plans. Drive back down the valley. I know it is likely the wrong decision. That I am, as my grandmother would have said, throwing the baby out with the bathwater, or, as my mother would have said, cutting off my nose to spite my face, but I can't help it. My sadness overwhelms me - I couldn't, even if I wanted to, talk to anyone rationally about anything this weekend - it engulfs me, overpowers me, leaves me feeling wretched and empty. I only hope that it is also somehow cleansing, that, perhaps, afterwards, I may finally, finally, be able to move on.

But for now I am sad. 

Just so very very sad. 

Beyond coping. 

A second disastrous weekend in a row.

Yes. Sad. In more ways than one.

I will have to do better.